[Jayne Osborn]

Wheelie bins stink like crazy in this warm weather, now they're emptied only fortnightly (where I live, anyway)... but I wouldn't say that particularly reminds me of the past. There's lots of scope with this one, though.

Jayne

The Oldie Competition
by Tessa Castro

Competition no 193
Recent muggy days have brought out stronger smells, some of which I found reminded me of the past. So please write a poem called ‘A smell recalled’.
Maximum 16 lines. Send your entries in by post (The Oldie, 65 Newman Street, London W1T 3EG) or email comps@theoldie.co.uk to ‘Competition No 193’ by Friday 21st August. Don’t forget to include your postal address.

[John Whitworth]

This would suit The Staggers better.

A Smell Recalled

Here on the tram I’m being good
Perched on the leather spruce and clean.
It smells of engine oil and wood
But that is not the smell I mean.

My gran is clad in bible black
Smelling of talc, severe and tall
With buttons going down the back.
But that is not the smell at all.

A notice tells us not to spit.
We do not spit. We are not crude.
We do not see the point of it
And anyway it would be rude.

The spitters stink. They stink of sweat,
Their kids as well, and puke and pee.
And that’s the thing I can’t forget,
The acrid smell of poverty

[John Whitworth]

Well that was a bit much. They did smell though. My wife confirms it. Because they had coal in the bath, no doubt. Now something much nicer.

A Smell Recalled

Goods Trains, Hickleton, Hickleton,
Ollershaw, Parkinson, Skelmersdale, Ramsbottom,
Steam Trains, Wigglesworth, Battersby,
Partridge, McAllister, Hickleton, Gunn,
Willoughby, Walderslade, Robertson’s Marmalade,
Bannister, Harbottle, Harbottle, Crun,
Hutton & Havisham, Pickering, Faversham,
Fowler, Fitzwillam, Concannon & Son,

Goods Trains, Cardinal, Davenport,
Butler & Butler, O’Kelly & Paterson,
Steam Trains, Longfellow, Longfellow,
Sattherswaite, Shufflewick, Cummings & Spall,
Spillsbury-Nicholls, Upritchard & Donoghue,
Peabody, Peabody, Peabody, Small,
Henderson-Hyde, Bott & Mallison, Sidebottom,
Bastable Brothers and… nothing at all… nothing at all...

[John Whitworth]

Is nobody else attempting this? Good news for me, then.

[RCL]

Smelly enough?


Smoky Blues

Does brimstone saturate blues tunes,
its smell evoking mortal blight?
Dispersed as notes in blues saloons,
does brimstone infiltrate blues tunes
to lure and purge in hot lagoons
the black and blue pursued by spite?
Does brimstone saturate blues tunes,
its smell provoking mortal blight?

[Tom Parker]

John, I'm bamboozled by your second one there. I read it aloud and loved the sound of it (and had to read it again) but I haven't a clue what it's talking about. Smells of what? Trains?
I'd love to put some pictures to the lines (without spending an hour on Google anyway).

[RCL]

A smell that still gags me:

Mom’s pasta plate would feed them all—
extended family and paesani.
Witty, she amused this mob,
and sang the Great Depression Blues
when she ran out of meaty bones
and boiling broccoli fouled the air.
As I grew up, she’d often groan
Pasta with broccoli—months on end!
At dinner once, she told her brood,
It’s all they serve in pauper’s hell.
Then holding up my school report—
a string of Ds and Es, one C—
she signaled Dad to back her up,
but he kept chewing prime filet.
Nostrils flared, she sniffed at me:
This smells of future broccoli!

[John Whitworth]

Oh dear Tom. I thought it was clear. The smell of steam trains, in this case goods trains. If you are too young to have smelled it you can get a good idea by travelling on one of the private steam lines that exist. It goes with the noise of the old tracks, now gone because the modern rails are welded together. It went dadededa dadededa.

This unlike the stink of poverty, is a wonderful smell.

God, I can remember the smell of cooking savoy cabbage. That is truly vile. Modern cabbage doesn't smell anything like so bad.

[Tom Parker]

Thanks John. It probably is clear to most but I've never ridden on a steam line. I can imagine the sound but hadn't thought much about the smell before. I feel deprived now!

[John Whitworth]

You certainly are deprived. Go and book a tour now. Oh Thailand. Hum. Can you get to India? They have steam trains all over. And there's that marvellous reiterated scene in 'The Ladykillers where they drop bodies from a railway bridge to steam goods trains passing underneath.