The Oldie "A Smell Recalled" comp. Deadline 21st August
 

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.

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

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...

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

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?

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).

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!

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.

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!

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.

Oh, yes, I remember the smell of steam trains, John. It was the very smell of adventure and discovery, even if we were only going from London to Rochester.

And they had separate compartments, accessible from a corridor that ran down one side of the train. None of this modern pseudo-aeroplane nonsense.

'The Lady Vanishes' ought to be in smell-o-vision.

There is still a working steam locomotive that does a run here twice a year I think. It's usually booked up months in advance. Your recommendation has convinced me to try for a ticket next time though.
There used to be a lot of old British steam engines here running the rice mills. I found the remnants of one all rotten away in a derelict barn next to a rice field once.

I've just seen a horror film set inside a Russian train where the redoubtable and very sexy Thora Burch gets to kill lots of people (in self-defence natch) mostly by stabbing and impalement. They are chopping American people up for body parts with masses of blood and screams and raping to death. You know how Russians are..

Unfortunately it ain't a steam train.

I recall reading somewhere that a railroad in Egypt fueled its steam trains with old mummies in the late 1800's. That must have had a memorable aroma.

Steamed mummies sure beats school cabbage as an idea for this comp, Douglas! :D

Is your Oldie a bit late, Jayne? I say this because I've had the (very gratifying) result for some time and am therefore ahead of the game re satnavs which is what the next competition is about. I do commiserate with you about The Oldie It's much more difficult to post then either of the other mags.

Oh... My magazine hasn't arrived yet, John.

Thanks for the heads-up. Let's see if it arrives today..........

Jayne

Further to my earlier "Oh", it's now "Oh dear!"

My latest copy hasn't arrived. I'll have to chase it up tomorrow, and see if I can buy one from somewhere.

Sorry D & A-ers; the results and next comp will be posted as soon as I can manage. Hang in there!

Jayne

Edited in: My nearest Waitrose has several copies of The Oldie, so I'm just off to drive over there and get one... the I have to type out the page, of course...