Biscuits, Bulbs, Beer And A Book Poem by Geoffrey Winch

The town has lost its soul – sold it
down the Thames and Kennet,
even its Holy Brook –

lost its appetite for H&P’s biscuits
revered once by the world – allowed
voracious enterprise to swallow them
whole – grew fat instead on silicone chips.
Spread these about its road-wide web –
tasty morsels that might have tempted
lost sons and daughters back until
they heard the brewery too had dried
then latent thirst for home-life died.

Now they live in alien places –
rootless as the whim that stripped
their bulbs from hallowed grounds –
since their town has lost its Courage
to welcome exiles home.

Wisely, after he lost his manuscript
on Reading’s Station, Lt Col Lawrence
rewrote his noted book.