Neighbours
Ours was the semi with bohemian neighbours. He was an actor on the radio, Mrs Dale's Diaries and Children's Hours. Now he does butlers and solicitors In ads and serials. It's a face you know, Ascetic, vulturine, an unbritish face.
His wife, the real unbritish, from Vienna, Spoke German to their pert, precocious daughter And made strange stews with yoghurt and paprika, Which was exotic for the time and place.
In England, then and now, such difference matters. While she went out to work, he loafed all day Fixing the car and lobbing googlies at us. He took us to The Oval where I sat as Happy as Larry, watching Peter May.
He barracked Barrington's hard-working duck. He backed into a Bentley and said, 'Fuck!' Three more things other grown-ups didn't do. The pert, precocious, only daughter grew Up beautiful, but not for me, worse luck.
John Whitworth
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