What an intriguing poem, Max. Thanks for
posting--Candice
--- cooee <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Leith Policeman, Tosh and Tin
>
> While we waited, I asked
> what had brought him
> (accent Scottish, Australian
> grandson, name of Keir)
> to this country?
>
> (Keir, I knew, was named for
> Hardy, Westminster1s
> first socialist, cloth cap
> defiant among the top hats.)
>
> Och, I left Aberdeen to serve
> in the Edinburgh Police,
> down towards the docks at Leith.
> Don1t know if you know it?1
>
> (Leith Walk, yes, its theatre,
> left-wing for a time -
> The Gateway, used books,
> the risky feel of the streets,
> soiled white swans
> in the flotsam at the docks.
>
> Before supermarkets took over,
> Scots belonged to Co-ops like
> St Cuthbert1s, whose horse-drawn
> milk carts woke me to their music,
> shod hooves on setts and cobbles.
> That was in the sixties.)
>
> This was in the sixties -
> utter boredom, walking the beat.
> Lasted two years, then left.
> They modernised straight after.
>
> Back to Aberdeen,
> worked in the fishing,
> got to be auctioneer.
> There were bad things to S<caron>
> turn a blind eye to - hard.
> One day I was too outspoken.
>
> Luckily Adelaide wanted me,
> last of the ten-pound migrants.
> Great little fishery,
> it was a co-op - AFC -
> till the egos took over.1
>
> (So much for socialism.
> Where are the Scottish co-ops?
> Swept away.
> Sorry, Keir Hardy.)
>
> Melbourne, then - at one stage
> we had four planes in the air
> telling us where to send our fleet
> chasing the tuna shoals.
>
> We flooded the market,
> twenty-nine cents a tin.
> And fished out the tuna.
> But we Scots multiplied.
>
> It1s good now watching
> grandsons, granddaughters.
> Keir? I call him Tosh, all the boys.
> All the girls I call Tin -
> don1t ask me why.1
>
> I missed my moment
> to say soberly the old tongue-test:
> the Leith Police dismisseth us.
> Tosh and Tin are bound to know it,
> and may yet hear about
> old Scottish hopes, dismissed.
>
>
> 30 May 2007
>
> Max Richards
> Doncaster, Victoria
>
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