SUNDAY, HOLIDAY WEEK... (My new poem inspired by a Peter Brook painting...)

 Sunday, Holiday Week…

(Inspired by Peter Brook’s painting…)

The factories and mills, like the folks who lounge nearby,

Wear their Sunday best too, as unencumbered by smoke, 

They bask in their idle austerity, buildings of dull gold,

Brickwork blackened in places, yet curiously serene and wry.

Rows of grim windows offer the workforce a minimum of light or resolution,

Whilst waterside rails, flimsy at best, angle askew like spindly representations

Of groynes on North Sea beaches. The redundant stack stands tall and smokeless

As a gush of used water tips into the cut, adding to the industrial pollution.

The buildings seem to stretch up clear of the pallid canal’s hidden murk 

And as several loiterers stand and chat, maybe thinking about 

A drink or two at the pub, one chap, stick in hand, fag in his mouth

Becomes a spectral reminder of where factory dangers continue to lurk…   

Pete Ray…

27th February 2026…

Love this painting…

I recall similar scenes around Birmingham’s city centre canals, in which my father learned to swim as a youngster…

In the painting, the water reflects light but likely hides an evil stench and indescribable filth…

The thoughts of The Sand Martin...

‘Unlike so many industrial paintings this has a light and airy feel, possibly reflecting the relief of holiday week when workers had brief respite from long hours of hard grinding labour.

The buildings, canal wall and chimney are an unusual shade of bland murky yellow and this is the dominant colour of the scene along with the contrasting startling white seen in the canal. 

The canal flows out between the stark workplaces and right into the foreground. Together with the clear, sharp angles of the buildings the perspective is such that we look back up into the painting to the huge main chimney rising high up. 

The dark murky shades at the side of the canal and a running outflow suggest pollution and unpleasant contents lurking beneath the sparkling surface. 

A few people look down from an elevated walkway adjacent to one building. 

Somehow waterways are always appealing to the senses and the movement of water creates a dynamic aspect to this scene that onlookers would find mesmerising, peaceful and calming.

The way in which a limited palette is used to such effect is impressive. It is a rather colourless painting but the use of perspective creates a very compelling picture that tells a clear story.

A bland sky painted in a yellow-grey enhances the feeling of this as being a bleak place. 

After a week’s grace the chimneys will again be relentlessly bellowing foul smoke up into the sky and it will again be a hive of industry. 

Within those grim walls workers will be remembering their week of freedom from work and longing for their next holiday week...’