I wrote this poem for the Diamond Jubilee; I understand that the golden coach will be in today’s pageant, so it remains relevant. Both poem and illustration can be found in my collection To Marloes With Love, on sale in Marloes Village Stores.
Dedicated to those many “Unnoticed Heroes”…
One has a rather special job: there’s lots of travelling round
For, all across the British Isles, one has to visit towns.
Now, some of these are ugly, and some of them are quaint–
But when will people realise that one hates the smell of paint?
It’s true, there’s never litter: the streets are spick and span;
And every police officer is smiling, to a man.
One never, ever, ever, gets jostled by the crowd
As they wave their flags and cheer– my goodness, aren’t they loud?
One week one is in Scotland; the next, one is in Wales;
But they never let one stop to shop: one misses all the sales!
It’s best behaviour every time: one must never lose one’s cool–
Even with some dense official who’s being such a fool.
The work, it hasn’t altered at all in sixty years–
They couldn’t mechanise it; that never was one’s fear.
But, all around, the world has changed; a huge difference, of course, is,
When one started there were debutantes, and every girl loved horses.
So don’t you think one’s justified at least to mull it over
When, at one’s time of life, it’s off we go again to Dover,
Or Penzance, bound for Tresco, or darkest Pembrokeshire?
So many thousand miles! Oh, why not jolly well retire?
Of course one was delighted when first one got the job;
And one can’t deny that, down the years, one’s earned a fair few bob.
But now, at last, the day has come – this work, one’s going to chuck it:
Someone else can follow Liz’s coach with a shovel and a bucket!
