Document 231

Any other Pleb

Author(s): Anna Blair

Copyright holder(s): Anna Blair

My father and my Grandpapa
Were merchants selling tea.
We lived in Claremont Gardens then
At Number Twenty-three,
With handsome door in Glasgow style
And brasses polished bright
With arching windows, chammied clean
And woodwork painted white...
In black lum hats and collar-wings
And loops of watch and chain,
With button holes and stripes and spats
And silver handled cane,
The gentlemen went off to town
To talk of taste and brew
Of blends, of size of leaf and strength
And Clippers overdue.

My mother's life was calling cards,
The dressmaker at Three,
Her streamer'd maid, her wee at-homes
And Pettigrews for tea,
Holidays at West Kilbride
And good works for the Poor,
Rustling silks and reticules
And anger at the Boer.
While mine was Nanny, wicker pram
And walking in the park...
Buttered toast and nursery games
In winter after dark,
My big hair bows and plimsoll shoes
My pinafores for Drill
And lessons at the Dame School, in
Park Circus up the hill.

So it seems I must have been
A bona-fied Glaswegian
With Charing Cross and Kelvingrove
My local city region...
But then I think, not using words
Like 'ben' and 'dreep' and 'stoor'
No closes, cludgies, peever-beds
And never being poor,
Made me not really true-bred stuff
The kind that played at HET
My pedigree was too West End
Far too Pan Loaf...and yet
There's maybe space for such as me
Like any other pleb
For ninety years another woof
In Glasgow's fankled web.

Information about Document 231

Any other Pleb