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From Stroud to Swindon for a Football Match (Brunel All the Way)

Stuart Butler

Friday, June 13th, 2025

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Start your journey at the Platform One Café,
Coffee and croissants and Katie and Rick,
3 tables, 6 chairs, a trunk, 15 railway puzzles
(Always one on the go for travellers with a brief encounter),

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 Sundry model engines and railway memorabilia,
A library, greetings cards, two clocks,
A mannequin budgerigar in a toy cage,
(A real one would put all Heaven in a rage),
A mirror to enhance atmosphere,
A muffled Radio 4, a rustle of newspapers,
A quiet scratch of pen on crossword.

Notes

Alight at Swindon to walk along the Heritage Trail,
Find the Mechanics Institute in the Railway Village,
And close by is what was once a draper’s shop in 1847,
Then a beer-house, then the London Stout House
(William and Arabella Thomas took it over in 1863;
Their son Thomas then ran it until 1946,
When it officially became by
George Orwell wrote a famous essay about the perfect pub: The Moon Under Water: “If you are asked why you favour a particular public-house, it would seem natural to put the beer first, but the thing that most appeals to me about the Moon Under Water is what people call its ‘atmosphere’.” He goes on to say that this perfect pub doesn’t exist, of course, but if “anyone knows” of such licensed premises, “I should be glad to hear of it, even though its name were something as prosaic as the Red Lion or the Railway Arms.”
This essay appeared in the Evening Standard in 1946. In 2025, The Telegraph voted the Glue Pot the best pub in Wiltshire: “It’s an easy-going street-corner pub, handsome in an understated way, and as good for cider as it is for beer. The world has changed, but sometimes a really good pub doesn’t … “
I drop in on an LS Lowry match-day:
A few red and white Swindon scarves wrapped around shoulders,
But also, the different accents of the opposition fans,
While I write a letter to George Orwell,
Letting him know that I have found the Moon Under Water.

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Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/from-stroud-to-swindon-for-a-football-match-brunel-all-the-way/