Vox populi.

 
We did kings and queens at school,
until the sixties,
when the comradely history teacher,
who'd been the first to enter Berlin,
showed us a beautiful painting of an unemployed miner
and taught us of the long march from Jarrow.
 
Some multi million private security company,
took some workfare kids and left them cold and wet under London bridge;
I didn't photograph the parties,
that seventies kodachrome with jellied faces to camera,
it didn't seem appropriate,
so I took some pictures of the lonely Union Jacks.
 
She appeared eventually with Philip,
looking stern in the rain and the wet,
as the boats glided past,
shouts and splashes,
lasses with big coloured flags.
 
The prince caught a cold and they took him of to hospital,
Auntie got told of for being to flippant,
but I thought it was OK,
at least Canaletto would have recognized the earnest bluster of the flotilla on the river,
the music and song lifted the spirits.
 
So that was it, until the next time;

I looked again at the lady in the bus shelter
and thought of you.

~