DIRTY OLD STOKE - Inspired by a painting by Doris Brown

When I was young I dwelt in the Potteries,
Named by the potters in china factories,
The air was always dirty, often thick fog,
It was quite dangerous to go for a jog.

China was heated to two thousand degrees
By dusty, smoky coal, and when a breeze
Blew the smoke it went just about everywhere,
But the bosses were making money, they didn’t care.

They lived in the posh houses beyond the dirty street,
Far enough away so that the foggy air they did not greet.
Thursday was the worst, Wednesday was stoking day,
Sometimes the busses stopped, we would walk anyway.

Curtains washed every week to keep them clean,
No one dressed in white a foolish act it would have been,
For the soot would change it to grey a second outside,
Coughs and colds rampant, illness often did abide.

But there were parks, flowers fighting to see the sun,
The misty haze around the sun when a new day begun
Was always very pretty, before the fog came down,
Sneaking into everywhere in her grey evening gown.

The bottle ovens where everywhere around to see,
All belching out black smoke as thick as can be,
But, oh, the fresh air of a holiday by the seaside
Filled everyone with joy, we could never hide.

Now everything is electric to get two thousand degrees,
No thick black smoke wanders on the evening breeze,
But when I look at pictures of the bottle ovens of old,
Memories flood back, and many tales could be told.

M Ann Margetson © June 18, 2001