Ode To Leighton Buzzard

Same street
Different day.
Same time.
There she goes again.
Boots, Bank, Smiths. Across the street to buy some meat.
Repeat.
Same again next week.

In Leighton variety is a different filling in your sandwich for each day of the week.
Monday: Ham
Tuesday: Cheese
Wednesday: Cheese and Tomato
Thursday: Cheese and Ham
Friday: Jam.
It’s been the same for twenty years.

Every Thursday the same messages on Facebook
“You going town Saturday?”
“Litten’s a shithole, but yeah I’ll be there”
The Litten Tree. Between you and me,
Don’t go for a wee in a place like that.
They think you have crack.

Every week leads to the weekend and every year leads to Christmas.
No end. Just repetition, repetition, repetition.

Yes, it’s relatively safe.
Yes, it’s peaceful.
Yes, it’s “a good place to grow up”, wherein
Good people spend their formative years.
But is that a good thing?
It’s quite right wing
For a start.
And surely, by not experiencing the “real world”, the town breeds apathy.
A distaste for change.

Yes, it has heart.
But not much of a mind.
Confined in their own little world. Oblivious. That’s far worse than being exposed.
Far worse for us all.
Little experience of injustice,
Of pain,
Of difference,
Technically means it doesn’t exist.
And it won’t change with that mindset.

Slough? Pah!
Come, friendly bombs and fall on Leighton.

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