OLD RAY

As a cold and frosty morning
Turns into a sunny afternoon,
Old Ray wanders round old London town
With, as usual, too much on his mind.
Murmuring songs from way back
When his voice was always on the radio,
He hunches his shoulders
And digs his hands deep down
The pockets of an old overcoat.
A bit barmy and battered,
But still a well respected man,
Old Ray rambles the old familiar way,
His forehead growing higher now
Under one of Max Miller’s old hats,
With one of Eric Morecambe’s old ties
Under an untidy scarf half-hiding
That gap-toothed grin on the sardonic face,
Which some passers-by fancy
They half-recognise from the telly long ago.

Young Ray bought a big house in the country
Once, but he soon came back to where he belonged.
He couldn’t get away because it was always
Calling him to come on home,
Back to the river and the big black Smoke.
It may all be cleaner now, but Old Ray
Hurries head down, muttering past
The shining new towers of the City of London,
New songs humming in his old head
With memories of family and friends
And the way love used to be
And the sacred days all scattered to the fields.
But though they’re gone
They’re still with him every single day
And he’s going home, so what does it matter?
Over the bridge and along the Camden canal,
By the old school and dance hall and pubs,
Through the Heath and villages and up the hills
Of Muswell, Parliament and Primrose,
In the blessed, chilly evening light
To sit on a bench and watch the sunset,
Way across the dirty old river.
Flowing into the night


(C. IGR 2011)

I wrote this after watching what struck me as a very eloquent TV documentary about Ray Davies last year (one of the ‘Imagine’ programmes on BBC 1). As I write, Ray is, I think, 66 years old, which in 21st century terms is no longer thought of as ‘old’, but back in the heyday of The Kinks during the last century, it really did seem ancient…

Fans of The Kinks will, of course, detect many bits and pieces from the band’s wonderful back catalogue woven into this poem.

The lovely picture of Ray (which first appeared in The Independent Magazine) was taken when he was 50 and, actually, he hasn’t really changed much at all since then. So – not so old.