Please welcome back Graham Cunningham! Graham writes the Slouching Towards Bethlehem Substack.
As you may or may not remember, Graham is one of our British JiPpers. He grew up in Norfolk—a county that occupies the northern half of that ‘hump’ that sticks out of the east side of England. It’s a largely rural area that abounds in rivers, lakes, and fens.
I mention all this because it may give some insight into today’s essay, in which Graham shares three of the light-hearted poems he wrote in his younger days.
The Joy of Lightening-Up In Verse
by Graham Cunningham
Life for me has generally been a rather serious business....more rarely a happy-go-lucky breeze. “He’s a serious little chap, isn’t he?” uncles would say, looking down at me quizzing them about the workings of various domestic appliances....and about their motor car outside. “You’re a bit serious, Graham,” girlfriends would say, as I over-shared my feelings on this or that subject....sometimes even on a first date! Of course, being of a serious nature does not mean you lack a sense of humour or that you are incapable of having a real good laugh now and again. And it does have the silver lining that you can at least tell yourself that you are less afflicted by Milan Kundera’s Unbearable Lightness of Being than more chirpy, cheery, hedonistic folks.
My life as a part-time writer began in my teens in the mid ’60s, when me and a mate from school started writing songs. We wanted to be pop stars....bless us! Mine were mostly heavy love songs, in a Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Paul Simon folk-rock mode. I carried on with this songwriter pipe-dream well into my thirties, but no longer with so many stars in my eyes. I still love my songs, but there they sit, as tape recordings in a cupboard drawer upstairs.
But a few of the more fun ones I did eventually get published, decades later, in small-time poetry mags. Three of these I’d like to share with you.
It seems ironic—given my theme today—that the song which first inspired me to put pen to paper was Leonard Cohen’s So Long Marianne, with those immortal lines:
So long Marianne
It’s time that we began
To laugh and cry
And cry and laugh about it all again
So here they are; three light-hearted song lyric/poems that saw some light of day, whilst all the (much more numerous) ‘serious’ ones remain in the drawer upstairs.
This first one is about an ancient hump-backed bridge in a village on the English Norfolk Broads where I grew up. In this poem-song I imagined a lorry getting stuck on the hump of it and thought that would make a funny story. It was written sometime around 1969 and was purely a flight of fancy, but when it was eventually published (around 2020), someone told me that they’d come across an article in a local Norfolk Broadlands magazine about a not-too-dissimilar incident that actually happened on the bridge in the 1960s....of which I was innocently unaware. Here is a link to that article....and here is the poem (which should ideally be recited in the distinctive yokely Norfolk accent).
POTTER HEIGHAM BRIDGE
Albert got his big truck stuck
on top of the hump-back bridge.
The cop-on-a-bike come by
and he give him a ticket.
The old man who leans on the wall
and smokes his pipe all day
said what wus wrong
well the truck wus too long
and the bridge wus too steep.
Potter Heigham Bridge had a hump
it was as humped as a cow’s rump
and though there wus a sign
it wus easy to miss, ’zy to miss, ’zy to miss
in the sunshine.
Well the grease girls and boys come by
at round about ha’ past four.
The bus that gener’lly took hours
would now take even more.
The bread man, the milk man
and the egg lady all agreed
that this here stew
was the rummest to do
that they’d ever seed.
Well the big yellow crane that
eventually came to do the job
it musta cost quids but it
thrilled the kids an’ mooed the cows.
The lads had a laugh on time and a half
then they went back to the town.
And the bridge looked arch
and started to frown
and night spread its gown.
Potter Heigham Bridge had a hump;
it was as humped as a blue tit’s breast
and when he took his test
life was less of a rush, of a rush, of a rush
so old Albert says.
The cars with their big red lights
bounce over the bridge agin.
The grease girls and boys play
fru’t machine at the riverside fun spot.
The old man who leans on the bar
and smokes the wall away
got on his bike
and said he’d not see its like agin
likely as not.
[Note about “grease girls and boys”.... If you were a teenager in mid ‘60s Britain, you were either a ‘Mod’ or a ‘Rocker.’ Mods rode Lambretta scooters and Rockers rode motorbikes. And the Mods pejorative nickname for the Rockers was ‘The Grease.’]
This next poem (also originally a song) was written in my early thirties and was inspired by the awesome and breathtaking things your toddler kids come out with once they start to talk. Cosmic questions that might elicit, from a busy, distracted parent, the answer ‘Well that’s a mystery!’ It eventually got published in India as part of a school curriculum resource; a collection of English poems for kids.
WHAT’S A MYSTERY?
Why do key holes have no keys
Why do fairies have no tales
Can I dial the numbers please
Which is best, boys or girls
What’s a mystery?
If I had another Mum
Would I be another child
If I had another Dad
Where would my old daddy be
What’s a mystery?
Where do grown ups put the child
That they say that they used to be
Where did my Mummy find my Dad
In the old days was I really
Just a little seed
When you die does it make you sad
What’s a mystery?
How many miles is far away
Why does daddy stop at lights
Doesn’t daddy know the way
What is left and is it right
What’s a mystery?
When we get to holidays
Will I be asleep
Is Blackpool in London or Japan
Is that baby lamb out there
The same as we had for tea
Why is everybody getting mad
What’s a mystery?
Why do grannies dress in lace
Why must children go to bed
Am I in the human race
Is my mind in my head
What’s a mystery?
Must you still do as you are told
Even if you cry
Why is everybody getting mad
If you pray to Heaven
can you do just what you like
Does He love you even if you’re bad
What’s a mystery?
This last poem-song is from Heritage Railway Nerdsville....generally—dare I say it—more of a boy thing than a girl’s? When I was growing up, the villages of the English county of Norfolk were still gridded with disused railway tracks, signal boxes, and stations....a legacy of the late 19th-century boom-to-bust over-expansion of railways. They were pure romantic magic to this boy. And they inspired this :
YOU BLEW SMOKE INTO OUR EYES
Some of us appear to have forgot
that the train service has stopped
else why are we all stood here waiting like a bunch of goons?
Soon they’ll be pulling up the tracks
and when Mr Henry gets the sack
the grass will grow and the whole place will return unto the dunes.
Choo choo train where have you gone
now don’t you know we need you?
How in the world are you supposed to get your pig to market?
You ran, you ran, you ran, you ran all through our childhood.
You blew, you blew, you blew smoke into our eyes.
Back in the middle of town
the vicar is driving around
handing out stickers with lots of old ladies to help him.
The young boy conducting the bus
is praying that they make a BIG fuss
’cause he’s had to work like shit since the train stopped running.
Choo choo train where have you gone
now don’t you know we need you?
Where in the world are you supposed to take your sweetheart?
You ran, you ran, you ran, you ran all through our childhood.
You blew, you blew, you blew smoke into our eyes.
Yuk! Bird droppings all around
dog’s got his head on the ground
pussy cat’s rolled into a ball in the ticket room.
A hitch-hiking hippy comes by
says “Man this is easy on the eye”
sits down to scratch his name on the edge of the platform.
Choo choo train where have you gone
now don’t you know we need you?
Now how is that big wide world to arrive and depart?
You ran, you ran, you ran, you ran all through our childhood.
You blew, you blew, you blew smoke into our eyes.
.........Hope you enjoy them.
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