Burnt
Journal 1955
for the
1955 Committee: Nick Cuddihy, Len Davies, Keith Jones, Frank Walton – and me
1
‘From
the grime and muddle of 1955 … the public is invited to lift its eyes towards
1974. Look; there is an electric or diesel (or, just possibly, atomic) train
pulling silently, briskly competitive, smog-free, out of the glistening
chromium of the new King’s Cross. This is the stuff to give a government which
likes to seem forward-looking.’ The Economist, 1955.
2
The National
rocket stands like a candle,
its flame
at the wrong end
: a
popping expulsion
of exhaust.
Nestled in its regal nose:
explosives,
atomic
or
hydrogen. Beneath its black sky,
the London
bus orbits Eros again and
again,
Piccadilly Circusing under
the
flashing ad for Gordon’s Gin.
The city
is nine million eyes behind
3-D specs,
winking at the circum-
ambulatory
dizziness of a ‘certain gentleman’
who ‘quite
forgot himself’, as he’ll explain
to the
disgusted officers who arrest him.
It’s two
healthy cheers for the bicycles
rallying round
the rallies! Bike-polo
on the
green, tents pitched at decent
intervals,
as a smiling engine huffs
into the
country Halt, dispatching parcels
for our
birthdays, our bucolic futures
of polio
inoculations and hot running water.
You stand
around the rim of the casino table,
licensed.
The other men look like farmers
stretching
over a railing to examine plump pigs.
The woman
in furs simpers in expectation, red
handbag
bulging with dollars. She’s as restless
as Kim
Philby denying he’s The Third Man.
All you
see on this billiard-table green are
chips
piled unsteadily on neat squares –
the ITV pilot
of Double Your Money, or
a Pathé
News clip of Monte Carlo.
Nowhere special,
a native
policeman coaxes
the
colony’s traffic, one
small
child
on a
tricycle. Pedestrians shuffle, truncheoned
towards
the camps, the casual castrations.
Rumours of
Mau Mau hiding amidst the Carpet
Gardens at
Eastbourne are ready to pull
the rug
from under them all.
3
Four or
five men of around 70
sit over
real ales in a simulacral pub
furnished
with bits and bobs
from an
old first-class carriage,
to recall
the worst train-rides
of their
youths.
We’re still
awaiting
the arrival of a real
‘forward-looking’
government.
May 4,
2025
This poem is for the members of the 1955 Committee (including me). I am the youngest and I am posting this poem on my 70th birthday, for ‘Burnt Journals’ are birthday poems and I generally use the postcards featured, and arranged year-by-year, in Tom Phillips’ The Postcard Century. There’s a whole load of them, though this one is slightly different.
Part one is a quotation I gleaned from Peter Hennessy’s Having it so Good: Britain in the Fifties, and comes from an edition of The Economist of that year.
Part three is a version of the 'committee', sitting in The Mayflower. (See image above.)
Part two is more like the other ‘Burnt Journals’; it uses postcard
images from 1955: the aim has been to provide a surreal version of the
year, looking mischievously at images, misreading them deliberately, making
stuff up (while importing historical knowledge into it: the Mau Mau in Kenya,
the broadcasting of Double Your Money on the new ITV channel, the publication of
the first James Bond novel, Philby’s refutation, etc. Again, stuff from
Hennessy’s book). I hope you enjoy it.
1st November 2015:
2
3
4
5
6
7
Pages: November 1955 & Empty Diary 1955
8
9
10th
11
12
13
14th November : posted
2015:
Pages: November 14th 1955; 'Tombland: How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth'
Here's the 1955 'committee in session 3 years ago: Pages: The 1955 Committee (and others) 2022.
And what happened 10 years ago? This: Pages: An Educated Desire - For Robert Sheppard at Sixty (KFS; published 14th November 2015).
'Burnt Journals' of various kinds have been published over the years and they are, as I said, birthday poems. Here's a link to a link of one I wrote for Frances Presley, so far not collected: Pages: Robert Sheppard: Poem in International Times.
