Bolton - My Home Town

Of course it’s not Bolton, Lancashire anymore. Bolton, Greater Manchester doesn’t sound as good, does it? But that’s what it is now.

I have always loved James Taylor’s “In my Mind I am going to Carolina”. It is not really a song just about Carolina, of course. It’s a song about going home. Well just not about going home because for him in the song and for me in my poem below, “Home” is a state of mind.

I spent the first twenty five years of my life in Bolton but think about it every day. I have carried some of the imagery in the poem for most of the time since. A couple of weeks ago I paid a visit home to backfill the story. Hence the poem.

Bolton town centre 1960s

Hometown

When you get off a plane abroad,
the first thing that hits you is the heat.
Bolton’s not quite like that.
It’s cold and wet.
But I want to hear the accent.
To wrap it round me like a comfort blanket.
That throaty sound found on corners when I was a kid
But in this borough of splendid diversity,
It’s getting harder to hear “Eeh by gum” or “Are’t all rite?”
Maybe it’s only found now in the traditional songs and ballads.
Bernard Bullfrog Wrigley, Bob Williamson, the Valley Folk,
singing into the microphone at a folk club
and me.

I unfolded a street map and laid it out like a quilt,
letting my fingers weave across its coloured squares.
Through the houses, streets and alleys of my past
to find a cabinet of curiosities stuffed with memories.
The Iron Church Draycott Street Scouts on Friday.
Woolworths little boys learnt to shoplift.
The Palais on Sunday night’s boys tapping up girls.
The Man and Scythe teenagers learnt to drink.
Hayward Grammar if you passed 8 “0 levels” it was a ticket out.
Last but not least a full set of Wanderers programmes,
Frank Worthington, Nat Lofthouse and Jay Jay,
scoring goals for fun down at Burnden Park
and me.

Then the town centre appeared,
as theatre scenery staging its own history.
Bolton in all its post war you never had it so good glory.
Romance and nostalgia cousins of deceit
playing hop scotch on the shadows of my youth.
Suddenly the set came crashing down like demolished mill chimneys,
to reveal endless vape stores, bookies, charity shops and takeaways
in repetition as far as the eye could see.
But look up above the hoardings and shop fronts.
Inscriptions carved into brick that reflect past glory.
Richard Arkwright, William Lever and Samuel Crompton,
crouching stone lions on the town hall steps ready to roar,
and me.

Burnden Park

For Sharon, Trish, Rosemary,
and me.

Bill Allison