York

   
Board Inn at the end of Pavement,    
scrubbed bar top and saw-dust,    
Bass and only Bass, a true ale    
no fancy name, handles on the glass.    
Pulled down years ago;    
as was Hungate  beside the Foss    
Dank, dark and crumbling river bank,    
today Texan hats and foreign tongues    
where once poverty's ragged mantle.    
St Saviour’s Church  never locked,    
now closed, organ gone.    
   
   
City middin  for a thousand years;    
tall houses in the fifties, barking dogs    
leaking roof to floor, Dickensian,    
like a work-house down the road    
crammed-despair and loathing    
a hundred years and more.  
felled it in the sixties    
now called  Stonebow    
Board Inn gone.    
   
Archaeologists dig in  mud    
beside the river bank    
finding Viking pots and pans    
leather shoes and buckles    
a pier a landing stage,    
cobbles and such like.    
   
They'll build a museum,    
line  walls with charts and pictures,    
will they can the smells behind the Inn,    
hear the bare foot children ?    
Where did they go, I do not recall their going,    
remember this was in 1950,    
I was in my teens, dare not enter Hungate    
until they pulled it down.    
   
Bars and crowded pavements now.    
ancient town now a bustle.    
Coffee smells and city walls    
All Saints Pavement. lantern tower    
to guide those lost in Gaultres forest    
Saint Peter’s bell at noon.    
Minster clock without a face.