Home…

I tramp the streets of my youth,

where I first kissed many a girl

who flirted with me and their school uniforms

leading the way to starched Nurses apparel

and the women in the beguiling

dazzling dress who I wished for nothing more

to be in attendance of…

 

I tramp the streets where teenage mood

swings caught me off guard, where the Garth

became my back garden, where an altercation,

one-sided and full of badly installed testosterone,

the first of two beatings I took, left me nearly

without the sight in my right-eye and

where the BMX craze passed me by

in favour of the Rayleigh bicycle,

first one bright yellow and punctured

every couple of weeks, finally destroyed

by avoiding a lorry on the Churchill Road

and failing to see the concrete bollard

standing proud and erect and laughing

as I made but the merest scratch in its hide.

 

I tramp the streets where my paper round of four years

helped pay for my addiction

to Progressive Rock and Heavy Metal from a young age

and the abundance of 45s brought from a record shop

sadly no longer there, replaced by wool

and needle and the secret journey’s to gigs

not seen by my parents, my love of a Whisky Bottle,

of Horror in the realm of James Herbert and Stephen King,

all were purchased on the back of getting up

at five am and battling the elements

come wind, rain, shine and lack of

batteries at times to power the walkman…

I tramped these streets.

 

I tramped the streets of it all, every nook,

cranny and side show,

there was not a part of it I didn’t know,

this home, my home of Bicester town

in the delicate shadow of Oxford

and a world away from the place I am now.

I could not begin to understand its growth

when Sheep Street was enough for the kids

of Bicester, I cannot understand the appeal

when the memories I have are surely better

than the poor teenage kids of today

are stifled by the lack of rebellion

in 80s guise.

 

Ian D. Hall 2015