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Second Home

Second Home by Rob Barratt

An escape from the rat race. 
Life lived at a slower pace
An idyllic setting they won’t be letting
The cottage slumbers , 
Like the electricity meter numbers
It’s early March. 
The house is dark
They’re in Marylebone 
Or in Rome
It’s a second home

It’s a mothballed shell, residential hell
It’s a funeral bell, a death knell
For the low-paid locals whose response was vocal
(In the White Rose, before it closed)
But unrecordable  
It wasn’t affordable
It’s an empty place, a waste of space
It hasn’t got a ‘phone. 
It’s a second home

People recall that within the walls
Of this second pad, lived a Mum and Dad
With their family, on the settee
They watched Morcambe and Wise, and ate pork pies
In the blue TV light on a Saturday night
Life was pleasant in Woodland Crescent
Opening presents, chasing pheasants ……
But the parents are gone and the kids have grown.  
Mustn’t moan.
It’s a second home


In the shop, the assistant mops a spillage
Cycles to a less fashionable village
And she saved for….how long was it?
To get a deposit on a flat like a closet
And she silently groans and takes out loans
Despite her persistence, she’s just living an existence
She says, “Why me?”
And wishes she
Could spend the days 
In the house where she was raised
Life is tough.  Isn’t one place enough?
She wishes she could own
That second home

If they want a holiday by the sea
Why don’t they try a B&B?
And don’t try to build low cost housing
‘Cos you’ll be arousing 
The anger of each second home owner
Who’ll fly in from Barcelona, or Girona or bloody Pamplona
To claim they represent the residents
A majority of decadents. 
Don’t want to set a precedent
They want a postcard picture,
A chocolate box fixture
In water-colour paint. 
Want to keep it quaint
Maintain its reputation
Don’t worry about inflation
Or minimum wage degradation
Sod the working population
Mustn’t lower the tone ………..
It’s a second home

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