WITTON, BIRMINGHAM: A NEW POEM...

Looking Back At Witton

The greyscale image

Misting around damp streetlights 

Hints at harsher times,

More frugal, less hurried;

Witton Circle, grim and tremulous,

A stark canvas for petty crimes

Perhaps, or where tough kids have scurried

Unseen, ignored and oblivious

To adults hunching inside the tavern,

Where beer blurs the daily drudge

Into hazy, blissful, unconscious drunken nights…  

The two ‘phone kiosks

Listing on paving blocks worn;

I see the Co-op I’ve shopped in sometimes

And to catch buses there I’ve tarried:

Witton island, its Belisha beacons alight,

A busy community near Aston Church’s chimes,

Where soccer fans have clashed and harried,

Uncouth, deplored and obnoxious

To true supporters, hunching inside the tavern,

Where beer has drowned rivalry’s grudges

But upon visiting spectators has poured vile scorn…

Pete Ray

August 2017

I would walk from my mother-in-law’s house on The Ridgeway where I would leave my car to watch Aston Villa play at home.

I have seen unpleasantness between supporters around there. Lots of it… 

The Aston Hotel always seemed to reek of beer, as one walked past…

The Circle was always busy, even on days when no match was being played. I have shopped at that Co-op in the image, made phone-calls from the kiosks, crossed the roads many times via those ‘zebra’ crossings and when I bought my first used car, a Ford Anglia in 1973, my brother-in-law accompanied me for my first drive as a learner through Witton, along Witton Road and on a hairy ride towards the ‘6-Ways’ roundabout…

I would be terrified.