SANTA CAME FROM HALIFAX
There’s not many people know this
But I swear it’s really true
Santa was born in Halifax
In 1832.
His fatha worked up chimneys
Sweeping ‘em and that
His mam swept up at Rutter’s Mill
In a pinny and a hat!
But Young Santa had ambition
Said ‘Sweeping’s not for me!
Am guin into’t wholesale toy trade
An I’ll get to’t top o’t tree!
His fatha said ‘Now Santa
Don’t get ideas above thi station
But Santa said ‘I’m gunna deliver toys
To a grateful nation!’
He started small, did Santa
A parcel or two to Shelf
Delivered on a Christmas eve
With his mate Nick the Elf.
Then word got round the valley
That toys could be had for nowt
From a fat bloke down a chimney
With a beard and a soot-stained coat.
So children started writing
Letters and requests
And Santa read ‘em on t’sofa
In his flat cap and his vest;
And him and Nick took all the toys
On the back of Santa’s bike
And delivered ‘em throughout Yorkshire
From Tong to Heckmondwike
From Huddersfield to Tingley
From Barnsley round to Hull
From Giggleswick to Bingley
In weather cold and dull
And then one year the bike broke
And so they bought a sledge
And a bunch of Yorkshire reindeer
And Santa made this pledge:
‘Every Christmas Eve I’ll go
From Halifax round the world
Delivering toys down chimneys
With me White Rose flag unfurled!’
So when you look up in the sky
Every Christmas Eve
At Nick and Santa in the air
You really will believe
That Santa Came from Halifax
If you listen up, you’ll know
Because he’s shouting Eee By Gum
Instead of Ho Ho Ho!
© Ian McMillan, Dec'12, for Halifax Choral Society's
Christmas Concert
YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MUCH POETRY
Every day you need your breakfast
And Every day you need a rhyme
Start the morning with a cuppa
And Every morning’s poem time!
Poetry’s essential, just like porridge:
Poems will make you smile, not curse
So I say start every morning
With a fine Full English Break-verse!
© Ian McMillan, 19.10.11, The Chris Evans Breakfast Show
I LIKE A WOOD
for Save Grenoside Woods campaign
I’ve got to confess I like a glade;
A tent made of leaves, a tree-shelter,
Somewhere to sit in the afternoon shade
And say, quietly
I do like a glade.
I’ve got to confess I like a copse;
A branch of a twig office, a root-shed
Somewhere to sit where time just stops
And say, slowly,
I do like a copse.
I’ve got to confess I like a wood;
A trunk-palace, a bird-street
Somewhere to sit that’s fulfilling, complete,
And say, happily,
I do like a wood.
© Ian McMillan, 17.10.11
IN THE END, IT’S THE HOPE...
Each time they play we always think
It’ll be like 1966;
And it might be the crowd and it might be the drink
As the voices raise and the glasses clink
And the tactics fail and the passing stinks
But each time they play we always think
It’ll be like 1966
But the game is a mess and nobody clicks
And nothing connects when the players kick
And you feel slightly cheated and a little bit sick
And it’s nothing like 1966;
'Cos in the end, it’s the hope that defeats you;
In the end, it’s the hope that deflates
In the end the expectation’s more than you can bear
As you watch the match from behind your chair
With your dad and six of your weeping mates
And you punch the wall and you tear your hair
Because the hope is more than you can bear
And it’s nothing like 1966
When they’re running like chickens and heading like bricks
So here’s my advice: assume they’ll lose
When you’ve sung the Anthem, sing the blues
Pretend you’re watching Rochdale, Barnsley
Peterborough Pompey Hull or Bury;
'Cos football’s up and down like a channel ferry
And you’re sometimes miserable and sometimes merry
If you don’t build ‘em up you can’t knock ‘em down
And if your goalie's a fool and your striker's a clown
And your midfield’s toiling and your manager’s thick
And It’s not too much like 66...
Expect nothing. Expect nothing. That’s McMillan’s Law
Then you’ll be really happy with a nil-nil draw...
© Ian McMillan, 19.6.10 for Broadcasting House (R4)
IT’S NOT WHAT YOU DON’T SAY, IT’S THE WAY YOU DON’T SAY IT
Opening sotto voce:
Oh, not that dreadful World Tonight
The programme makes me shudder
Ordinary voice:
What...I’m on ? Oh, it’s my delight
To present another
Splendid poem for the listening masses
From the upper and the middle and the working classes...
But the lesson from the last few days has been
That a single moment tips the scales
You might think you’re safe, you might hope you’re clean
You might mean what you say or say what you mean
But on a Rochdale street on the campaign trail
Life bowls a googly and removes your bails.
Remember Neil Kinnock when he stumbled in the waves:
The media scrutiny was intense
And a baseball cap did for William Hague
Reputations can head for early graves
And the problem’s defined, with a lot of sense
As ‘Events, dear boy, events...’
Harold MacMillan said that, and he spoke the truth;
Round the corner reality waits
For the grizzled old hand or the gilded youth:
Life drips in through your leaking roof.
No matter how you spout in the televised debates
Life breezes in to blow off your slates...
And now we’re nearing the finishing line
And the torch of public opinion’s shone
In places where the sun don’t normally shine
And the difference is extremely fine
Between the up and coming or the down and gone
So always check if the microphone’s on...
...well that was a complete disaster!
Could I have babbled any faster ?
What ? We’re still on...
Er...Goodnight! And don’t forget to vote!
I know. I’m sorry. I’ll get my coat.
© Ian McMillan, 30.4.10 for The World Tonight (R4)
THE TWELVE YORKSHIRE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS
On the first day of Yorkshire Christmas my true love gave to me
A tinsel muffler to put round me tree
On the second
2 racing pigeons
3 nippy whippets
4 flat caps
5 Dickie Birds
6 Grandmas grumbling
7 Grandads snoring
8 Banghra Dancers
9 parkin makers
10 Bowls full of Yorkshire pudding batter
11. Football teams struggling in the lower divisions
12 Michael Parkinson Blow Up Dolls
© Ian McMillan 25.12.09
TWO NIL
Oh the day’s not nice and the day’s not pretty
It’s the day after Barnsley lost to Bristol City!
You might feel indifference, you might feel pity
Cos Barnsley let in two at Bristol City
But I feel a pain right in me nitty-gritty
And me heart’s in a tangle like a bowl of spaghetti
You might dismiss it but I just can’t forgetti
That Barnsley lost to Bristol City
I’ve got dreams: I’m a kind of Walter Mitty
And I dreamed that we might beat Bristol City
And I’d celebrate by playing my new Scritti Politti
Album while I ate a plate of cannelloni
But we lost two nil to Bristol City
And I have to admit I’m feeling pretty....unhappy.
© Ian McMillan 8.1.09 for Five Live and The
Gabby Logan Show
THE BARD OF THE BUTTON TIN
Our house was always full of Burns;
We had his picture on a shortbread tin
That became my mother’s button tin.
It’s strange the way a poet learns:
I asked my dad about the solemn bloke
On the button tin; my dad explained
About the bard, and he explained
How the poet’s words came from the folk
He listened to, their songs, their rhymes,
Their stories in the Ayrshire air;
Dad’s story hung in Yorkshire air
And then, as he did many times
My Dad recited ‘To a mouse....’
In his dancing Scottish voice
And a poet’s long-dead voice
Reverberated round our house
And the stern chap on the button tin
Could not suppress a Bardic grin.
© Ian McMillan 8.1.09 for The Times and
Rabbie's 250th Birthday
CONNECTED
Before, when you got mail,
It was a chap in a cap with a sack packed full;
Before, when you researched
You sat and sweated in a library that was just this side of dull;
And when you booked your holidays
You stood there in a queue
Behind a family of five and a pensioner or two
And life seemed so much slower, somehow;
There was acres of last week and just half a glimpse of now;
Today you click
On a mouse
And you can shop till you drop without leaving the house
And now you send
Your blogs
Right across the globe and the photos of your dogs
Can appear on your site in the twinkling of an eye
And in a tick you get a picture back of Grandma saying Hi!
Framed against the backdrop of a California sky…
And it’s been fifteen years from before to this
And now we’re living in a universe of constant cyber bliss!
And like the first fire in the cave
Or the first turning of The Wheel
The internet is changing how we think and speak and feel
And in the next fifteen years the net will turn and twist again
And go down murky sidestreets far beyond this Barnsley brain
And one thing’s certain: the net is here forever,
Constant as taxes, unpredictable as weather…
And before I’m dragged right under in a growing tide of spam
I’ve time for just this one last post: I click therefore I am!
© Ian McMillan, for BBC R4 Today, 7.8.06
SLOUGH RE-VISITED
Come friendly words and splash on Slough!
Celebrate it, here and now
Describe it with a gasp, a ‘wow!’
Of Sweet Berkshire breath
Slough is open, wide and green
With gorgeous buildings in between;
In the museum can be seen
Slough life, Slough death
Which show the history of a town
That people have tried to put down
By talking of it with a frown
And cruel sneers.
It’s true Slough Town don’t always win
But losing’s shrugged off with a grin;
Slough can take it on the chin
And has, for years.
Some towns are just seen as a joke
Through a fog of prejudicial smoke
Well, let’s shut up these put-down folk:
Their opinions smell!
Ask Slough people if they’re glad
To live in Slough, dismissed as bad:
Mum and dad and girl and lad
Are living well!
In 1196 it was known as Slo
and through the years it’s had to grow:
people came here ‘cos they didn’t want to go
To Maidenhead.
On foot, in coaches, trains and cars
To the factories, houses, shops and bars
They came to play or work for Mars
And stayed, and bred.
It’s people, living lives with care
And breathing in the Berkshire air
That make a town think ‘Yes, I’m there!’
And the sneering fails.
So, Children, Husband, partner, wife
Dismiss the poet’s rhyming knife
Slough’s the place to live your life
So hoist Slough’s sails!
© Ian McMillan, for VOLVIC, 19.4.05
as an antidote to John Betjeman’s take on the town
