Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

     Ernie’s relationship with his dad was one I envied at first. Mr Walker was a wounded veteran of World War One, a stalwart member of the British Legion, at whose cheap-ale bar he got tipsy once a week. His medals were displayed upon his chest whenever an appropriate occasion arose, such as Remembrance Sunday or King George’s birthday. His showy patriotism was strange to me. My paternal Grandad has also been wounded while fighting in the trenches; but he rarely spoke of it, and then only because he must have sensed my wonder at his close encounter with a violent death. Ernie’s dad, though, would grab every opportunity to describe in detail the horrors of war, including an account of how his leg was shattered by German machine-gun bullets.

     He treated Ernie with a friendliness that made my dad’s cool indifference towards me seem even more hurtful. It was easy to see why Ernie was so confident: Mr Walker, like the rest of his family, didn’t bother too much about the world beyond their own front door. They all went their own happy-go-lucky way, the mood of the household being set by four dizzy, singing, anarchic teenage daughters.

     A far as Ernie was concerned, his dad’s observations on life were the source of all wisdom, especially about the need to be loyal to the king, and the sheer luck of being born in England rather than somewhere backward. It was natural that Ernie himself should place patriotism above all other desirable attributes, even honesty and education - which accounted for his not being able to read and write, and why he nicked everything that wasn’t tied down. Whenever ‘God Save The King’ was played over the wireless, Mr Walker struggled to his feet and wobbled to attention. He performed this rite even if he was halfway through his dinner or in the middle of a conversation. If any of his daughters, Dolly, Peggy, Doreen and Shirley dared to giggle while this display of loyalty was taking place, their formidable mother would shut them up immediately. “Shut up you lot! It’s the King!” she would proclaim as though George the Sixth had just dropped in for a cup of tea and a biscuit. Scowling at his irreverent sisters, Ernie would imitate his dad, his head thrown back in line with a stiffened spine, his thumbs straight down the seams of his trousers as he had been instructed.

     As the final notes of the anthem died away, and cheerful dance music returned, Mr Walker gave a stiff-armed salute before flopping back into his chair. The non-stop, often ribald chit-chat of the girls would burst out again counterpointed by the never ending music from the wireless speaker hanging precariously from the picture rail of the crowded living room. I always sat beneath the speaker, loving the swing of the music, my head joyfully spinning from the chatter of the girls. Their whispered secrets and their puzzling innuendoes were followed by cries of raucous laughter which indicated a mysterious sexuality that seemed to me far more interesting than standing to attention for the King. And why was their loudest laughter reserved for the cucumbers their dad brought in from the back garden? In no time at all, I had fallen in love with Ernie’s sixteen year old sister, Peggy, by far the prettiest of them, and newly returned from a home for wayward girls. If the warm, uneasy feeling in my lower regions was a sign of my growing up, then it was a pleasurably painful sensation, and far, far more interesting than playing at patriotism with Ernie and his dad.