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

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Blackpool Born & Breed

I’ve spent the last week watching a pub come down, brick by brick. Happy memories, strange memories and those I never want back are crashing to the ground with the swing of a mechanical arm. Whilst this is hugely thought provoking, I suspect this is also the reason that I have been cut off from the world.

That said, the show must go on and, internet or not, phone line or not, I’m not about to be the one to let the side down and ‘not blog’...

This week’s theme is Blackpool. Ashley’s choice I believe and a rather appropriate subject to round off the first run of themes (one a week, six regular writers). For what it is worth, I love this town. Many will disagree and you are more than welcome to act upon that and move out but, for a local lad, I feel a real connection with the place.

For that reason then, I am going to take this opportunity to talk about both poetry and spirit here this week. In the wake of the appalling scenes up and down the country, you don’t need another opinion about rioters. To be honest, I don’t really know where I stand on the rioters anyway; whilst I don’t support mindless violence, thieving or vandalism as a general rule (and part of me wants the toerags stripped of any state-funded privileges, strung up on gallows and/or introduced to excessive community service orders stretching over years and years), something about the infectious wildfire spread of horror suggests to me that many young people feel swept aside, even failed by society.

Blackpool, I am happy to report, doesn’t seem to be in tune with these people. The aggrieved here either have too much money and made a trip to Manchester or simply thought better of it. I seriously doubt there was a ‘cup of tea’ moment involved. It has been one of those weeks when I was proud of our teenage mothers (indoors, minding baby of an evening), hooded kids and alcohol fuelled revellers... It seems everyone just got on with business as usual. We still though, have a voice, we are still people and we still want to be heard. As Blackpool FC, still licking the wounds of relegation, opened their home campaign yesterday, the mental fan next to me offered up some absolute beauties for chants.

“No wonder Preston went down...” he sang, before closing up and realising there was no obvious next line. “Ferguson, you did a great job at Preston,” came the next offering, again to taunting looks from his friends. It wasn’t an Obama speech, a Cameron sound bite or much more than a thought really. Still, he had a go at starting new songs and having his say- he got me thinking on the walk home.

Typical of Blackpool, he was trying to do something. He saw a light that was going out and eventually (conforming to the normal words) it caught on. He kick started the atmosphere again and started a chant. You tell me that this is not what poetry is about. To have a feeling, a belief, a new way of expressing something AND to have the desire to get it out there- for my money, that is where poetry should be going.

Barnsley have a Resident Poet. Whilst I doubt that the Tangerines are even remotely interested in having a poet, how good an idea is that. Someone at a meeting (a literature festival meeting, actually) said ‘Blackpool didn’t understand Wendy Cope’ not too long ago. I let the point pass at the time but it still eats up at me. Still, the woman in question strikes me as the type to agree whole-heartedly with the Forward Prize shortlist for the year... nobody under 50, not white, not male can have anything to say. She lives in the area- I doubt she even understands poetry herself, let alone anything that could be branded Forward!

As I said earlier, I live in Blackpool. The thirteen or so million tourists a year that come here might not give a hoot about the locals but I sure do. The government might not care how we get on so far away from Westminster but I sure do. With so much talk about the ‘broken society’, I am just thankful that we have our poetry group and with that, somewhere to really make a point heard.

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