A Vintage Claret Amongst Black ‘n’ Whites

A Vintage Claret amongst Black ‘n’ Whites


Is such unequivocal evidence


Favours cannot be chosen. They’re conferred,


Passed down generations like a gold watch,


Anachronism this digital age


Of just in time and use by dates. Who’d keep


Such a mechanism now, other than


As a curiosity. Allegiance


Has become a commodity, freely


Traded, worn for a season, discarded


Once fashions change or someone else becomes


Top of the league, top of the range. No one


Is fobbed off with a fob watch anymore,


No matter how great it might have been once,


No matter hallmarks, though rubbed almost smooth,


Are still faintly discernable, no matter


Those marks are eloquent symbols of place,


Of origin, of value beyond price.


It’s so much easier to buy the new,


To sport the latest fad, to see being seen


Through trend-tinted spectacles, to be


Transparent enough for the heart. Sitting


In a Newcastle bar when three o clock


Chimes Saturday afternoon kick-off hour,


When peals of “Howay the Lads!” and “Toon! Toon!”,


The tintinnabulation of fervour,


Ring around Leazes End and Gallowgate,


Sounding like distant clamour of voices


From beyond this mundane world, weaving through


Milling shoppers, the living dead who’re damned


To wander malls of the Eldon Centre,


And shooting, shouting through the open door


Of the pub, I’m a hundred miles and four


Generations away along the Longside.


Whoever is looking for me must see


I am the bastard in Claret and Blue.






Dave Alton