Footnotes
 
The MA (Oxon) classics man has spent
race days for many years at Chepstow Course
and loves the company of bookies’ clerks
and tick-tack men. His curling blond moustache
is groomed each morning with ten minutes’ care.
A Liberal Democrat.

The second history teacher, Rhondda boy,
has several Rhondda tastes (the beer, the sport)
but prizes most the racks of tapes, CDs
left to him by his father: swing and jazz:
Fitzgerald, Bechet.

The Library girl (with junior English groups)
was taught to bake at ten years old, now cooks
Madeira, Carrot, Cherry Bakewell cakes
most Sundays, has just made a three-tier cake
for sister’s wedding. Now she visits her,
goes beachcombing, loves sifting glass and shell,
on Chesil beach.

The Headmaster’s quite beautifully-bound
collected classics, Greek and Roman texts,
are little-read. Out on his weekend trips
to Brecon’s mountains, he quite often takes
a breakfast of Brie sandwich and red wine.
Breeds whippets.

The lad who takes technology and craft,
at weekends cycles, swims and power-runs,
has got triathlon in his sights. He has
a close-kept hoard of fivers, two-pound coins,
to give to any charities who call.
Bound over (drugs) at seventeen.

Miss Barnes, biology and art, has had
a serious speech impediment. She loves
detective fiction, fudge and weepy films.
Her boy friend has MS; weekends, she drives
him round to cafés, beaches, cricket grounds.

Robert Nisbet

If you have any comments on this poem,  Robert Nisbet would be pleased to hear from you.