Listening to Twenty Four Hours From Tulsa in The Prince of Wales onChristmas Eve ...

One Christmas, my dad took me for a pint of Poachers in The Prince of Wales - he still compiled crosswords then, under the pen name Sisyphus, for the parish magazine -  

There were pale photographs of 1930s battleships upon the walls of the lounge bar - 

There they were, the imperial battleships, carrying the lords of creation - 

My dad joined the Royal Navy when he was sixteen - 

He can still remember when he stepped ashore in Kingston - it was his first cruise on The Duke of York -

The pub was almost empty - the landlord reached for a sherry glass - wisps of tinsel hung from the yellowy brown ceiling  -

In the public bar, Twenty Four Hours From Tulsa was playing on the jukebox -  

13.40

4 September 2014

Havant