Walton's Scrapyard

Walton’s Scrapyard Mr Walton was our local scrap man He wore a great big hat His yard was squeezed between Two terraced houses And I was always amazed at that The yard was full of junk Rusting scrap And old tat Tangled up and piled up high That was fascinating to a Nipper Like I Old bicycle frames Bits off boats Bits off trains Twin tubs boilers Old wire old prams Parts from a lorry and caravan Wagon wheels and engine blocks Infarct If it wasn’t there It didn’t exist Because he had the lot At the back of the yard built up high He had a pigeon loft aloft A rat fest I’m pretty sure I used to watch his pigeons fly around in flocks Thirty forty Racing pigeons Maybe more Us Nippers would scavenge the common Lie marauding Vikings Pillaging tips and hedgerow For metal to be weighed down To make a few pennies Or even half a crown Copper and lead Made the most brass And suddenly things went missing From the White city fast Mysteriously A bike left carelessly by a door Old boiler and wires from an empty house Piping under the floor The garden swing From next door Please don’t tell But anything we could sell Your Mum would turn around To wash your clothes Washing machine gone Just a leaky hose We’d burn the plastic of the copper wire That stunk worse than a burning tyre Tie it in nots or twists Put it in a sack And that was that Off to Mr Walton's Happy as Larry to weigh it in And come out With a pocket full of pennies In us shorts and a grin Merrily we’d go Off toward the sunset Toe to toe To the Beeroff To buy some pop Spic and fags With our dough Yes, we liked to borrow things in those days Unlike the kids of today Ooh how shocking. Peter Dome©2019.