I Never Thought I’d End Up In Hackney, David! Poem by C Richard Miles

Dear David, as I start to type
This message, after all these years,
I pause, for it is only time’s
Dimension that now separates
Us, since this space was yours as well:
I breathe your air; I pass the paths
That you knew well when you were young
A quarter century ago
Before our paths crossed. Though things change,
Coincidences still remain:

I look down from my window, high
Up, in my common council flat
Off the notorious Murder Mile,
By scruffy, seedy Downs Park’s edge,
And often think about that time
I first set foot in Hackney, fresh,
Though student days were almost spent
But sultry summer lingered on,
When up from Reading you called me
To Liverpool Street to come and meet.

The place arranged was outside Smiths
And so I took an early train
And caught the crowded, stuffy tube
And waited, waited but in vain
Since no-one came and so I phoned
To find that you had long been there
Outside another platform’s branch
(For we discovered there were four)
Yet, as we laughed, boarding the bus
I did not dream that I’d be back.

We sailed along drab Hackney Road
But had to stop at Cambridge Heath
Outside that pub, now boarded up,
Jump off the Routemaster, now gone,
And change onto a Fifty Five
That I take now, when home from church
I ride on Sundays. Did I think
I’d ever live your London life,
Rub shoulders with soft southerners
And stalk your manor, prowl your patch?

What times we had, that gang of four:
You, Sue and Joy, and I, those days
We toured the town and scoured the shops
And stopped at Centerprise for books
And coffee. We trekked, recharged, back
Past Ridley Road and Kingsland Waste,
Where vibrant vibes awoke our eyes
To see what London had to lend
To us, three callow, country folk
From Cheshire, Devon and the Dales.

You were the streetwise, savvier one,
The East End boy but now made good
By reading university books
To train to teach more well-off kids
In grammar schools way out of town,
As did the girls. Yet not for me
Was education the intent;
I longed to be a weatherman
And not a teacher: not like you
Whose calling shouted loud and clear.

How you would laugh, if we could meet,
Since all my plans have gone amiss
And I now am a Hackney lad
(Though Yorkshire’s accent still rings loud)
And teach, like you, unruly kids
And trail home to a council flat
Like you did then. How strange it seems;
How parallel our lives have tracked,
Though we’ve lost touch: I seem to live
The life you did when first we met.

As for the others, where are they?
I know Sue plays the saxophone
And is unmarried, just like me.
Does she watch cricket matches still
When Roses battles fierce are fought?
(Though she supports the other side:
The Lancashire, trans-Pennine team.)
I found her on the Internet
But Joy and you are lost to me,
Though I live now where you did then.

Do they still knit, both Joy and Sue?
They taught me how to make that scarf
When Doctor Who was last a trend.
(Though it’s come back.) I passed their skill
To countless, eager wide-eyed kids
Who did not think that men could knit,
Though just for fun; my knitwear’s bought
Where Primark ousted BHS
Where you once shopped: another loss
Like Gibbon’s Stores burnt to the ground.

And so I tread your borough’s streets
And spend in Mare Street’s dingy shops.
The Narrowway’s my well-worn path
And, in the Globe on Morning Lane,
I often gaze across my glass
And view the mouldering maisonettes
Where you resided, wondering if
You still remember that weekend
We came to stay and taste the sights,
Which I just take for granted now.

But some have changed: The Central Hall,
Where Methodists once sang their hymns
And where we worshipped, chorused, prayed
That Sunday, was closed down to hold
Unholier books on library shelves;
The Ocean Bar now takes its place
Where Rechabites once signed the pledge
And. round the back, the Post Office
Has left its post where it once stood,
And gone AWOL from Paragon Road.

But some are left: like Marks and Sparks
And Woolworths, where your brother worked
On Saturdays to earn some cash;
The Town Hall stands across the road
From Wetherspoon’s, quite newly built;
With red-bricked terracotta walls
The Hackney Empire steals the scene
From your Trelawney’s tottering blocks.
At least they’re there, unlike my last
Sole relic where there once were six.

Though Nightingale’s a better place,
Now concrete’s been replaced by bricks,
I still hark back to former times
And think of how it used to look:
For five stark towers, which overlooked
The grassy ocean of the park
Were razed to dust like memory
That soon will blow like thistledown
And so I post this on the Net
In hope that you might still recall.

I often thought, when I first moved,
I’d bump into you in the street
When you came back to see your folks
And once more haunt your stamping grounds,
But all these years have passed and I
Have never seen nor heard of you,
Though there’s enough of you still left
In Hackney’s air to cross my mind:
Those pictures of that weekend’s stay
Came back like it were yesterday.

You may have caught a glimpse of me
On “Songs of Praise”. At Pentecost,
The other year, I sang alone
“How Great Thou Art”, live on TV.
But broadcasts to mass audiences
Don’t heal communication’s break
Between us four, who once were close.
They say the world’s a village now
But not to those like me, who’ve lost
Addresses, contacts, names of friends.

Remember when they used to joke
I had a wardrobe full of red?
Though older now, I still wear some
If the occasion calls me to;
Like Red Nose Day, to please the kids
All camouflaged, red head to foot!
Red Yorkie’s just a breath away
From where you learned to walk and run.
That name I still use for my team
In silly fantasy-football leagues

But dare we wish to meet again?
Experience might not be sweet
If life dealt those a losing card
That once we knew and try to seek.
Is memory a better site
To keep those faces time has dimmed?
Those things in common that we had
May be as lost as you are now
So disappointment’s painful cost
Makes still my hand and stops the flow.

What if those friends are dead and gone
And contact will revive new griefs?
Should I just bottle it and pass
And press “delete” and close and go?
But risk I must, with one last throw
And send this message with faint hope:
If you should read this, think of me,
And smile with memory’s wistful smiles
And so, until we meet again,
I’ll sign off, truly, Richard Miles.