Slough (poem)

Slough (poem)

"Slough" is a ten-stanza poem by Sir John Betjeman, first published in the 1937 collection Continual Dew. It was written in protest against 850 factories that were to be built in the English town of Slough. The poem caused an uproar when first published.[citation needed]

However, on the centenary of Betjeman's birth, his daughter apologised for the poem. Candida Lycett-Green said her father "regretted having ever written it". During her visit, Mrs Lycett-Green presented Mayor of Slough David MacIsaac with a book of her father's poems. In it was written: "We love Slough".[1]

Contents

Poem extract: the first stanza

Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!

Responses

In 2005, Ian McMillan published a poem titled Slough Re-visited using the same metre and rhyme-scheme as Betjeman's original, but celebrating Slough and rejecting mockery of the town as unfair.[2]

Punk band Gallows (who originally formed in Slough, and whose singer Frank Carter has frequently expressed his dislike for the town in interviews) have several references to Betjeman's poem in their music: their album Orchestra Of Wolves featured a song named "Come Friendly Bombs", and an earlier song entitled "Swarm Over Death" (released on the band's 2005 demo) features the lyrics "Come friendly bombs/ And fall here now/ It isn't it fit for humans now/ Swarm over death".

In the first series of The Office, which is set in Slough, Ricky Gervais, in the character of David Brent reads extracts of the poem interjected with derisive comments such as "You don't solve town planning problems by dropping bombs all over the place".[3] The poem is reproduced in full on the liner of the DVD release of this series.

References

  1. ^ Poetic justice at last for Slough
  2. ^ ""Slough Revisited"". Volvic. 19 May 2005. http://www.uktouring.org.uk/ian-mcmillan/index.html. Retrieved 31 January 2010. 
  3. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVr6rFXJg88

External links


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