Poetry Corner: Mile End House of Horrors

By David Parry

The best days of our lives,

Says squinny Jimmy Edwards

To Mr Chips and Basil Brush

And dirty Gerty from number thirty,

Alongside granddaddy Will Hay,

While we played Pompey Conkers

And noshed crisps after breakfast

In our all-boys private St Trinian’s,

Where we were promised chufty badges.

The best days of our lives,

Recall dinny corporal punishments,

A wooden desk, preening prefects,

An empty tuck shop

And an S&M six of the best

Administered by wacko Mr Williams –

Who liked a healthy bottoms-up,

During Wednesday afternoon sports,

Whence winners got chufty badges

The best days of our lives,

Greased the grip of gender anxiety,

Although worse for a homosexual,

Since I was one of them “shagnasties”

(Not like us proper lads),

Who branded dislike and silence

Into my flesh as a traumatised misfit

Without a chufty badge.

The best days of our lives,

Coerced me into serial truancy,

While shielded by lies and excuses

From sociopathic Colonel Willis,

Complicit Paddy, local jock Lionel,

And pocket money in my faded uniform,

While they flaunted chufty badges.

The best days of our lives,

Evolved from barely repressed fears

To fantasies about my todger entwined

With a member of the upper sixth

And biting a bullyboy’s flex

During sweaty bike shed bundles:

Yon blether, I remember you, Lee,

Along with your chufty badge.

The best days of our lives

At Mile End House of Horrors,

Whereabouts women are from Venus

And a ghee really comes from Mars,

Even though I innocently orbited Uranus,

Whereon gifted aliens are chufty badges.

PICTURED: A photo snapshot of the author, who is a local resident living in Fareham and has been for many years.