麻豆社

One of the poets rising to the challenge of writing a new poem for Slough will be Fergus Allen from Streatley, who has published three collections of poems by Faber & Faber and Dedalus Press.

Fergus met Betjeman when he was a young man in his 20s, and told Henry Kelly about his experiences with the great poet.听

Fergus Allen

"I'd just come to London from Ireland and I was living in Bloomsbury." said Fergus. "A friend of mine in Dublin had suggested that I get in touch with Betjeman, who had been working in Ireland in 1941 at the British Embassy in Dublin.

"Betjeman became very fond of Ireland and wrote some good poems about it afterwards too.

"I summoned up my courage and called up the Ministry of Information where he was working at the time and asked to be put through to Mr Betjeman. After a long pause the telephone receiver was raised and a voice said "Betjeman speaks".

Fergus was impressed by the generosity of the poet, who immediately invited him out to supper.

"I was 22 and he would have been 37, 38." said Fergus. "He took me to this beautiful place in Holborn called the Old Holborn Restaurant. It was all art nouveau with silver palms and columns.

"We had smoked salmon, oysters and brown bread and Guinness and we had a very nice evening. I showed him some of my poems."

Fergus will now write a positive poem about Slough based on John Betjeman's rhyming structure - which will be available online on Monday, 11 August.

And if you would like to join in with Henry's challenge, send in your poems and positive thoughts on Slough to berkshire.online@bbc.co.uk.

Read some of our poems on Slough below!

And now for Betjeman's original version:

Slough

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!

Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

Mess up the mess they call a town-
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years.

And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears:

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.

It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead

And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.

Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.