Light floods in to illuminate our special day,

Mum all a-bustle

preparing the way

for the scrubbed and considered version of my father,

head of the family, old before I was born. 

 

The light turns to sun as we spill

from the tipped taxi onto a London bound platform

await the dark green masterpiece

of an all singing all dancing electric train

that takes us in art deco grimy heaven

past suburban semis,

the lazy drift of yards, factories

all a-shimmer, into the girdered greenhouse of Waterloo. 

 

Then once into the westbound train slumbering

like a stately lion on the asphalt pampas,

doors wrenched open each and every one,

boiler pressure right up;

the holiday has begun.