Caravan Planet

 

It was hot in Essex in 1965.

I was six.

 

We scrambled to shade,

in wooded glades we played,

Fleeing from intense sunshine

and other phenomena 

curious to Geordie sensibilities;

Squadrons of kamikaze wasps,

Immune to our anti air-raid newspapers,

if the fly spray ran out

we lacquered them

with Bellair.

 

Massive black slugs 

like fat, sidewalk serpents,

So numerous

it was a challenge to

Tiptree tip-toe around them.

And my ears filled with exotic sounds,

the southern natives

and the Irish traveller kids

we palled around with.

 

Sounds from even further away

courtesy of Radio London, The Big "L",

Sonny and Cher from Californ-I-ay,

Me and Big Sis singing

"I got you, Babe",

We're on the same medium wavelength,

Transistorised telepathy,

sibling symbiosis symmetry,

I got you alright,

we always got each other,

And always then and thereafter

you got my back...

"Put your little hand in mine",

to this day I hear it and cry

Every time.

 

While Dad worked on the building-site

we kids played

morning, noon and night,

We stayed in a caravan,

cosy, cramped even,

But it was An Adventure!

 

Mam got busy with the pan

as was ever her way,

Smokey bacon every day,

The pig farm down the road

had drawbacks too...

Which at least gave perspective

to our chemical loo,

But all too soon

we withdrew.

The summer went quickly

as they continue to do,

And innocence and youth

began to retreat,

Bricks and roads came to replace

hedges and fields,

the very grass

beneath our barefoot feet -

 

One last roll of pennies

at the village fete,

One last ice cream 

for the fate of the village...

 

One happy, hazy hiatus

in the progress of planned pillage.