Influence Runs Long & Deep
“I used to work as an accountant but after 38 years I decided it wasn’t for me. But, you know, I gave it a decent shot.” That got a laugh, got the audience on my side.
This was the Typewronger bookshop monthly open mic last Sunday evening. I’d been meaning to get myself along for quite a while to try out some of my poetry on a live audience, but, like the lion in the Wizard of Oz it has taken me some time to discover my inner bravery.
If asked - no one has - who my poetic influences are, I would say that despite having recently shelled out £20 for a 1st ed. of A Few Late Chrysanthemums (1954) by John Betjeman, I like to think my style owes more to performance poet, Attila the Stockbroker rather than the late Poet Laureate. Having said that, I can recall only ever hearing one of Attila’s poems. That is A Bang and a Wimpey, his account of being threatened in a hamburger bar by a couple of nine year old kids. Listening to it again today I realise that sometimes influence runs long and deep, often - indeed, almost always - without us realising it.
The three poems that I read on Sunday all relate my experiences working in my local Oxfam book and music shop. One of them, god only knows, describes an encounter with a customer - who I assumed to be on an acid trip - repeatedly asking me if all our vinyl records are 10p.
Attila’s A Bang and a Wimpey appeared on a 1982 compilation album Pillows & Prayers released by the Cherry Red record label. This was an eclectic post punk collection which also included tracks from The Monochrome Set, Everything but the Girl, Felt and - extraordinarily - Quentin Crisp. The album was priced at 99 pence ("pay no more than 99p" was printed on the original sleeve) and as a result sold 120,000 copies. We now have a copy of it selling in the shop for £2.99; god only knows what the acid trip bloke would make of that.
But more than that, A Bang and a Wimpey contains the following lines:
I've been searching for the young soul rebels
Been searching everywhere
Couldn't find them anywhere
But here they are in the Wimpy bar
Right by Victoria station
I stand and watch them operate in muted fascination
'Till...
" 'ere, got 10p mate? "
Snaps me back to hard reality
In 1982, the sound of a kid asking him for 10p snaps Attila back to hard reality. 43 years later, in 2025 it’s the sound of the bloke on the acid trip asking me if the vinyl records are 10p that shakes me out of my reverie. If that’s not a sign, then I don’t know what is. A sign of what I know not, but a sign nevertheless.
At Typewronger there were certainly better poets (and story tellers & musicians) than I. There may also have been more competent accountants present. Weirdly, out of 13 performers, three of us were called Mark.
But it was good fun. Will do again, although maybe won’t read a poem I’d just cobbled together on the bus on the way down there. John Betjeman wouldn’t have done that; he was more of train man. Attila the Stockbroker - still going strong - wouldn’t either.