I Never Met A Londoner

a poem by gary knapton from a collection entitled "another mans shoes"

Ten years this June I left my room

And swiftly headed south

To make my fame and fortune

And to hear the Cockney mouth

I wanted to discover just what makes the world go round

And to meet the famed inhabitants of good old London town.

I trod my feet on Oxford Street

Fenced in by car and cart

The crowded din of accents giving promise to my heart

But all the folk I spoke to were from Kent or further down

They said “We ain’t no Londoners what come from London town.”

I crossed Green Park and I could see

The palace guards at noon

“As London as it gets!” I thought

My spirits in a boon

I told them of my plight

But they were laughing all too soon

“We are fae bonnie Scotland, lad. We are the Royal Dragoon.”

I ambled Hatton Garden where a Goldsmith played his hand

J. Rosenblat from Israel

He missed The Holy Land

I showed him my sum total and his furrow broke a frown

Still, he’s not a Londoner who comes from London town.

I dined with Turks in Walthamstow

And Asians in Brick Lane

I made a friend in Greek Street who said

“Please come back again!.”

I stamped my dues in Petty France

As Customs men came down

And I thought of all the Londoners who come from London town.

I drowned in noise as Geordie boys

In building sites abound

Hung from a rope in clouds of smoke

Ten storeys from the ground

I skirted flanks of timber planks and shouted “Don’t Look Down!”

But I never met a Londoner who came from London town.

I met the fighting Irish in the taverns of N1

In Brixton the Jamaican Yardies said I need a gun

Parades of Hare Krsna hummed their mantra

In their gowns

And Southall Sikhs said “Wishing you a thousand London towns.”

The Aussie folk of Earls Court made my skin look pale and starch

I smelt the Arab billions just south of Marble Arch

A million chefs in China Town said I could take my pick

I bartered with the Bangladeshis up in Hackney Wick

I Hansom cabbed Jamaica road down through the Surrey Docks

Where Kingdom-Brunel’s tunnel-men came down with sewer pox

My driver said indeed this was a local haunt before

  

But each and every Londoner got de-mobbed in the war.

So ten years passed until at last

This place became my home

I’ve trodden every alley way

I’ve up-turned every stone

I’ve met ten thousand goodly men of yellow black and brown

But I never met a Londoner who came from London Town.

(copyright)