JANSON STREET

The terrace straggled down the slope;
its blackened bricks and sooty air
cried poverty and slender hope,
but my friend Karen’s house was there.
Cobblestones beneath our feet
as we skipped ropes on Janson Street.

No central heating, outside loo,
an old tin bath beside the fire,
pervasive damp, and wet mildew;
Karen’s family’s house was dire.
She’d bathe at our house, for a treat;
the refugee from Janson Street.

On Friday nights I’d stay to sleep;
her folks went out for booze and fags,
while Karen to their room would creep
to find their stash of dirty mags.
We’d read them underneath the sheets,
I learned some things, in Janson Street.

When Karen’s dad complained of pain
his doctor thought him “on the skive”.
He never went to work again;
a heart attack at thirty-five
made his life short – but never sweet.
There’s funeral cars down Janson Street.

Her Mum went drinking, even more,
presumably with other friends;
had more cash, somehow, than before,
and on us kids she’d freely spend.
With lemonade and crisps replete,
outside the pub on Janson Street.

One afternoon, in double History
Kaz said her Mum was up the duff;
the baby’s father was a mystery.
My parents couldn’t take this stuff,
no longer keen for me to meet
the common whore of Janson Street!

A vacant house came up, just then
on the council’s new estate.
I never saw my friend again
or learned much of her family’s fate.
No more excuse for us to meet,
since they moved out of Janson Street.

A slum of urban deprivation
condemned, and all the windows boarded;
“unfit for human habitation”.
The people moved somewhere less sordid.
Demolition was complete,
the end of squalid Janson Street.