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Being English

Stuart Butler

Sunday, October 16th, 2005

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 On holiday in the Pyrenees,
We all talked about Arthur Mee’s
Encyclopaedias and all our yesterdays so long ago
And what a debt we all owe
To those august volumes, numbered one to ten
That we all studied way back when
We learned to read by firelight
Down on the carpet by the fireside bright,
(Tales of Ancient Greece and Rome,
The Arabian Nights and how the British Empire had grown),
Until we discovered comics – the Eagle, Tiger and Beazer
Where we discovered the mythologies of Melchester,
Sipping our cocoa for a sleepy bed time supper
With Roy Race and fish and chips with immortal Alf Tupper,
And all those other comic cut famous fifties’ names,
From those half forgotten-reinvented far off days,
When part of my identity was fundamentally made;
But just like England, some things just have to change.

© Stuart Butler

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/being-english/