The Time Traveller

I was trapped in the late 1990s,
stir crazy in the compound,
despite the perfectly landscaped woods,
the nine-hole golf and magic aquachutes —
trapped in the holiday paradise, built for kids
with endless energy, perfectly homogenised
chalets scattered in orderly muddles.

So I mounted the hired bike, and rode
as far as the cordoned off car park,
and drove to freedom, to Mansfield.
An ordinary midlands town, a town
of butchers and bakers and brewers,
and to a baker's shop I went.

Six pikelets, and three or four words
took me back in time. " 'Ere y'are, duck,"
as she handed me the white paper bag,
the precious tea-time treats, and a wormhole
to the 1960s.

Three or four words,
and I was back in time, a small boy
visiting Nana and Grandpa in Nottingham,
eager for Goose Fair, for ghost trains
and ginger-snaps and balloons,
Nana playing A Windmill in Old Amsterdam
on a piano, not tuned for twenty years,
Grandpa pressing a five shilling fortune
into my hand, with "Don't tell yer dad!"
and the candy floss lady at the fair,
giving me the sticky sugar cloud on a stick,
with " 'Ere y'are, duck."




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