Finding Common Ground Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

In my second year
At St Catharine’s College
I had rooms in Sherlock Court
On the second floor
Of an old shop
With a window onto
Trumpington Street.

It was desperate cold
As the block was
Under renovation
And the furnishings were
Very shabby and dusty.

But I used to chat
With my bedder
Mrs Reynolds about
This and that.

One time she told me:
‘I got a grandchild now
But my daughter’s having
The devil’s own time
As he’s a blare baby
That won’t sleep’.

I told her that
Where I came from
In rural Cheshire
We would have said:
‘As he’s a blart babby’.

She used to complain and mither
As she dusted and I used
To complain and munger as I swotted...
But she put it all in perspective
By saying with some determination:

‘It’s all work innit eh? '