My wife returns from a funeral 

and says: I know now 

what we should play at yours. 

The deceased arrived 

to the strains

of Flanders and Swann's

Slow Train, a lament

that lists so many 

mellofluous-sounding stations

bulldozed by Beeching. 

 

The service leaflet has 

a tank engine and coaches

on its cover. I find myself 

composing the first line

of my own obituary: 

He never quite got over

the branch line closures

and steam engine scrappings

of the mid-1960s, 

even though he was only twelve.