Poetry Review - John Betjeman - Slough

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This 1937 verse may be Betjeman’s best known work, and addresses his scathing desire for bombs to flatten the London borough of Slough so its eyesores and poor architecture can be redeveloped. Even the people of Slough would be better of bombed into oblivion, as with the adulterous, but uncaught man who takes pride in reducing women to tears. He wants to see office bosses bombed but not those who have no choice but to work for them, though it has driven the workforce of Slough insane. Betjeman sees the annual holiday in Maidenhead for many Slough citizens as a living hell Betjeman adds his contempt for the women who bury their hair in peroxide. He wants Slough returning to the soil, fit only to grow cabbages. Funny and a little shocking, the poem was superbly deconstructed by Ricky Gervais in an episode of his comedy series, The Office, which was set in Slough. Gervais concludes that Slough and Maidenhead are lovely places and Betjeman probably had no idea what he was on about. It is still a very funny acidic poem though. The poem, read by Tom O'Bedlam on Youtube Arthur Chappell