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It’s Coming Home

Stuart Butler

Sunday, July 4th, 2021

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 When the working class was first given the vote,
The Home Secretary said:
‘We must educate our masters’;

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 The result was the Education Act,
Which resulted in elementary schools,
Throughout the cities, towns, villages and hamlets
Of the United Kingdom;

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 Single storey, red brick or local stone,
Separate entrances for boys and girls,
Sometimes seemingly more Arts & Crafts
Just as at Bagpath, near Stroud,

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 Where the headteacher walked the lanes,
Ringing the bell through the winding
Spring-line hamlet;
Children trudging or running to school,
Along the lanes, footpaths and holloways,
To study the pink bits on the world map on the wall,
To learn the 3Rs and the catechism,
To receive a ruler rap across the knuckles,
To go absent at harvest time,
To cry when their fathers were killed in war,
To sing their hymns of praise,
To raise the flag and march on Empire Day.

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 But we danced to a different tune,
Watching the match against Ukraine
Projected on the wall where the imperial map
Once dominated the class attention;
We danced because it’s coming home
To a new rainbow post-imperial England,
Diverse in form, formation and composition;

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 But the ghost children rose from their cramped desks,
To join us in our collective hymn of praise and joy:
‘It’s coming home, it’s coming home,
It’s coming,
Football’s coming home.’

Notes

Ukraine 0-4 Ukraine 3 July 2021.

Editor Note:
Visit Stuart’s THE TOPOGRAPHER’S ARMS JOURNAL –
Online Radical Stroud, for 2020’s Social Distancing Comrades and Dreamers
https://sootallures.wixsite.com/topographersarms/post/it-s-coming-home

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Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/its-coming-home-2/