Friday, May 20, 2022

Happy and Harrowing Harrow, Pinning Down Pinner, Ending with Hatch End. Comic poem 140.




I'm an author and live in Hillview Road 10 a

It's clean and green, I've a small abode 9 a

Tall trees lean, and arch, drop cones on the ground 10 b


Firs, flowers, bushes, busts, birds abound 10 b


Hidden away, back gardens, sure to please 10a

Hide gnarled apple, old pear, giant oak trees 10a

We grow six types of grapes, hoping for wine 10b

We might fill one bottle in ten year's time 10b


We've tame cats and dogs, a wild bush-tailed fox 10a

And an old-fashioned, domed, red letter post box 10a

Stooped friendly neighbours and neighbourhood watch  10b

Loud burglar alarms, high gates and strong locks 10b


I'll start my story with tales of Harrow 10a

Streets cobbled, then bricked, wind steep and narrow 10a

Historic and romantic after dark 10b

Drive up and find it's hard to double park  10b


Hillview Road once viewed Harrow on the hill 10 a

Now skyscrapers - please don't bear them ill will  10a

Neighbours in Harrow are nice as an ice 10b

Kids survived Covid-19, rats, head lice 10b


Pinner has Heath Robinson's museum 10a

His cartoons raise laughs, each time you see 'em 10a

Nelson's daughter sleeps in a nearby grave 10b

Near Tudor pubs whose names campaigners save10b


Walk up Pinner High street, historic, steep 10a (6a 4a)

Eat in Tudor pubs, drive round a few bends 10b

Along Uxbridge Road, flowers planted by friends 10b

And you'll reach Heaven, our litter-freed Hatch End 10b


Eat Chinese, or Jewish style served by Greeks 10a

Indian, Italian, dine out for weeks  10a

Twenty restaurants - when you've done with 'em 10b

At Grimsdyke hear Gilbert and Sullivan 10b


Mrs Beeton was our most famous cook 10a

She wrote a still-in-print cookery book 10a

A World War Two bomb blew her house away 10b

But a plaque clung on the wall yesterday 10b


We've twisted old trees, red clay soil, brown mud 10a 

High street photos show cars towed from a flood 10a

We've charity shops, collection boxes

Garden fences which don't block the foxes


My name's author Angela Lansbury 10a

I hope you'll recall this verse penned by me 10a

And dear Philip, who seems ordinary 10 b

Until he hangs poems on his front tree. 10b

-ends-

10 is the number of syllables. a and b are the rhymes

Written on Friday 20th May 2022 by Angela Lansbury at the request of Philip Barnet who has hung poems on the tree in Hillview Road, Hatch End, Pinner, Middlesex, England, UK, by the pavement (Americans say sidewalk) to entertain passers-by.

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