Piers

There is something nostalgic about these walkways over the sea, suggestive of British recreation in the days before Abroad, when people took a train or coach to a resort and paddled, strolled on the promenade, listened to the band or rode on donkeys. Goose pimples, candy floss and fish and chips were the main ingredients of a Grand Day Out after which one felt better for the ozone and slept soundly in one's own bed. You could buy Rover tickets and go somewhere different every day for a week, possibly a post war idea of Holidays at Home.

The Travellers Return

The Rover's Arms
I'm pestered, goaded, tortured, racked.
It's August and the pub is packed
With journey-making, tedious bores
Who must traipse off to foreign shores
To bring back tans and lurid snaps,
With anecdotes. One day perhaps
When I have had enough to drink
I'll tell them what I really think.
I abominate your tales,
I cannot stomach the details
Of what you ate and where you went
And whom you met and what you spent.
I loathe, reject, detest and spurn
That way you show off your sunburn
And yap with smug complacency.
You are anathema to me.
Why should I empathise or care?
It seems to me that once you're there
You like to feel yourself at home.
Why take the trouble, time to roam
To seek some little bar or dive
That replicates the one that I've
Lurked in all summer? Don't you find
That travelling narrows the mind?