The Ballad of Bearded Chorlton

 

Is Chorlton feeling cross

At the recent price of fuel?

Or worried that its neighbourhood

Is looking much less cool?

 

Are parents getting angry

At the lack of fairy lights

Is the message going viral

That the precinct’s still quite shite?

 

Are there gangs of undesirables

Skulking round our cars?

Caught on doorbell cams at night

Clutching metal bars?

 

Are we moaning over Brexit

Despise the tory sleaze

And always vote for labour

But whinge about school fees?

 

Do you always vote for labour

But feel Corbyn went too far

Show you love the climate

With your fancy hybrid car?

 

Have you had that loft conversion

Wow factor living space

Do you show a strong aversion

To half the human race?

 

Are we posting over fireworks

Which upset our cockapoo?

And why the police chopper

Wakes us at half past two?

 

 

 

But nothing’s done on speeding

Or parking in the street

Double buggies go parading,

The hedges aren’t kept neat.

 

Can we not find a Guardian

Or source organic yolk

Are queues outside the Unicorn

Really pasta joke?

 

Is it Guardian at weekends

You’ve bought it through the years

Is your wine rack fully loaded

Fridge stocked with fancy beers?

 

And is Chorlton Green enough

With its recycling schemes?

Not the parts that seem quite rough

But the toytown of your dreams.

 

And is Chorlton now at Ees

With paths and silver streams

Through woods and by the Mersey

With all its raving teens.

 

You can smell the ready income

In Laundrette, Suburban Green

For Chorlton’s now the neighbourhood

Where hipsters must be seen.

 

On weekends do you run the park

And go to poetry nights?

Like John Cooper Clarke

With shades on in the lights?

 

Do you support the cycle paths

Campaign for climate change

But curse the bloody traffic

When you nip to Whalley Range?

 

Are you from South of Watford

But settled down up here

After uni, wife and family,

Focus on your career?

 

In IT or accountancy

Banking, or H.R

Holidays come from bonuses

And they provide a car.

 

Your David Lloyd membership

Cost a bob or two

Your missus does the spin class,

You just use the pool.

 

And as the kids have flown the nest

To uni, horizons new

You needed other mouths to feed

A pug or cockapoo

 

Do you spin tunes at vinyl night

Play all your indie score

Or head off down to Glastonbury

In your Audi four by four?

 

Did yer use to push your buggie

With sproglets clutching hands

And gather at the school gates

To sound of school steel band?

 

Meet up down the jockey

For fireworks, Station Lead

As your hairline became thinner

You grew a mid life spread.

 

But now you rarely make it out

And drink red wine at home

While scribbling in a notebook

And trying to write a poem.

 

So all this fake behaviour

Where smugerati roam

But my address? I’ll give it yer

Chorlton’s been my home!

 

M x