Saucy Seaside Humour Found Its Home In Sailor-y-Pent
After my wife died, I used to visit my children and their families often. This was during lockdown, and I discovered that, provided there was at least 10 days between visits, I was allowed to have two “bubbles”.
Staying with my daughter’s family, I wrote a poem about an imaginary person. When I read it to the family, my son-in-law, Andrew, said,” Write another!” I did. Gradually, I accumulated more of these sketches, some funny, some sad, some a bit naughty and one or two downright salacious.
I thought this collection of characters ought to have somewhere to live, so I invented a Welsh seaside town, a sort of poor man’s Under Milk Wood. By then I had over thirty-five of these individuals, so I strung them together into a single 7,800-word poem, which took the form of a walk through the town, from the harbour to the church on the hill.
It needed illustration. I found Paul Baker, a caricaturist, who asked what these characters looked like. I said, “Read the poems and make up your own mind!”
He produced some wonderful drawings, reminiscent of those risqué seaside postcards by Donald McGill. For the cover, he came up with a lovely watercolour that looks rather like Tenby. When Andrew read it, he thought it was a good book to hang in the loo, because one could pick it up, read about one character, then put it down until the next visit.
I published this seaside ramble under the title Sailor-y-Pent, which could be translated from pigeon Welsh as ‘Sailor’s Head’, or ‘Sailors Point’. There is another reason for this title. See whether you can work out what it is!
Here, as a taster, is one of the more wistful poems from the book.
Miss Pinkerton
Little Miss Pinkerton lives in a flat
She wears hand-me-down clothes and a small, faded hat.
She eats takeaway meals and drinks buttermilk shake
And knits stockings for sailors the hours she’s awake.
She works in a charity shop by the bank.
Her fiancé was drowned in his ship when it sank
And she never got married, her heart having broke,
So she has no companion or other close folk.
She doesn’t take holidays, never falls ill
Every day is the same, it’s all run-of-the-mill.
Although everyone knows her, they don’t know her well.
They’re aware that she’s lonely, but don’t ring her bell.
She chats very brightly to people she meets
And she talks to the vagrants on green council seats.
She gives them a penny, she can’t afford more,
She feels it her duty to help out the poor.
She goes for long walks round Memorial Park
But is sure to be home well before it gets dark.
She goes to her church and she sits at the back
In her waterproof boots and her weathered blue mac.
She lies in her single bed, stares at the wall
Does she think of her lover, or nothing at all?
She’s a singular family, worthy of love,
With the strength of a kitten, the heart of a dove.
I’d like to embrace her, to give her a hug.
I’m somewhat romantic, a bit of a mug.
To me she’s the essence of what life’s about
A model of goodness, of that I’ve no doubt.
