Welcome to my poetry: Stretton's Inconvenience!

Stretton’s Inconvenience!

Stretton's Inconvenience!

Church Stretton is my nearest ‘town’! As a school leaver in the sixties I worked in the Mace grocer’s shop. This was when the town still retained some character. It sported a cinema, numerous small grocery shops, butchers, clothes shops and cafes, and the Post Office was in a building of its own, rather than being tucked away in the back of the Spar supermarket where visitors can't find it!

Thursdays were busy. It was the day the ‘country’ people flocked in to pick up their pensions and bought the odds and ends which weren’t delivered weekly to their doors. And it was when the toilets for the visiting hordes were plentiful!

Church Stretton and its surrounding areas are places of outstanding beauty and therefore liable to have humans visiting, often by the coachload!       

‘Stretton’s Inconvenience’ appeared to be just that, as one day, soon after its construction, a coach load of tourists waited with legs crossed on the pavement! And who is head of choosing the ‘water music’ which tinkles away as the dulcet tones of the automaton tells the occupant they will be asked to leave after a certain time one asks? The Sound of Silence, I Did it My Way and wait for it, more recently, A Boy Named Sue just about says it all!

Stretton’s Inconvenience

There once was a loo in Church Stretton,

Its destruction the council was set on,

They knocked it all down

To a heap on the ground,

For a while there was nothing to sit on!

Then up from the rubble it grew,

A convenience, shiny and new,

But being restricted,

With three doors selected,

Now on the pavement we’re having to queue!

One’s only for men, so comply!

The others, for a girl or a guy,

The council don’t care,

We’re having to share,

They’re expecting us not to be shy!

 On entering the stainless steel shell

(Which turns out to some kind of hell!)

A voice from above,

Devoid of all love,

Warns ‘Big Brother is watching this cell!’

Garfunkel and Simon provide

‘The Sound of Silence’ once you’re inside,

You’d better believe,

You’ll be asked to leave,

If strict rulings have all been defied!

You have but a short time to stay,

You can’t loiter about there all day.

The voice from above,

Like a velvety glove,

Gloats ‘Take note of what I have to say!’

Being intimately watched really rankles.

And you’re still fed that song of Garfunkel’s!

You really can’t hide,

When the door opens wide,

And you’re flung out with your knicks round your ankles!

So if it’s Shropshire you’re ambling through,

And in Stretton you pause, for the view,

It’s best not to be caught

In a position that’s ‘short’,

Or it’s red cheeks on the pavement for you!

Thanks for your time!

The Leebotwood Poet xx