{"id":1909,"date":"2018-05-24T17:39:34","date_gmt":"2018-05-24T16:39:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/?p=1909"},"modified":"2018-05-24T17:40:37","modified_gmt":"2018-05-24T16:40:37","slug":"lost-nottingham-picassos-peace-train","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/?p=1909","title":{"rendered":"Lost Nottingham: Picasso’s Peace Train"},"content":{"rendered":"

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PICASSO\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S PEACE TRAIN<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The black clouds had been building up all week<\/p>\n

Thunder rolling down from the Peaks on Nottingham,<\/p>\n

Grey drizzle trickling from the glass roof at Marylebone Station<\/p>\n

Dripped on to Pablo Picasso\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s neck as he boarded the train to Sheffield<\/p>\n

Monday 13th<\/sup> November 1950 early morning the train\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s steam billowed<\/p>\n

Through the suburbs of London as it swung left at Lords, headed north.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adjusting his pale blue tie and the beret on his lap<\/p>\n

Pablo gently rolled his cigarette in his hand over and over<\/p>\n

He turned to Gilbert his ex-resistance bodyguard, drew fire<\/p>\n

His dark eyes flashing with mirth as they discussed the papers<\/p>\n

The lies and distortion and the statement by Clement Atlee<\/p>\n

Who stood by Guernica in 1939*, clenched his fist for the I.B.**<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The heavens were opening all across the Midlands<\/p>\n

The boiler hissing, the firebox at 2500 degrees C, half a Hiroshima<\/p>\n

They hurtled down a line 50 years on from the dawn of the century<\/p>\n

Carrying a card-carrying Communist spy according to the Herald<\/p>\n

To a Peace Conference in Sheffield that would \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcpaint the town red\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/p>\n

As the first U.S. troops brought their atomic bombs to defend us.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

From arts council genius to pariah, Pathe News mocked his arrival<\/p>\n

The only artist let in as Robeson and Neruda were denied visas<\/p>\n

The Korean War on the back burner, the cold war freezing<\/p>\n

Like bad weather the post-war storms kept blowing in<\/p>\n

Pablo\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s second and final visit to England and the first beyond London<\/p>\n

In Sheffield the chrysanthemums and the banners were wilting.<\/p>\n

Rugby, Leicester, Loughborough flashed by between grey sodden fields.<\/p>\n

Then the train swung right into a Nottingham damp with rain and coal dust.<\/p>\n

Crossing at Wilford Picasso caught sight of the Power Station<\/p>\n

Huge dark rain lashed walls by the Trent, chimneys belching sulphur<\/p>\n

The thunderclouds swirling beyond the steam out the carriage windows<\/p>\n

On Wilford Bridge he turned and said \u00e2\u20ac\u2122Rain, Steam, Speed n\u00e2\u20ac\u2122est-ce pas\u00e2\u20ac\u2122?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Down a modernist line that lasted barely a century they drew into Victoria Station<\/p>\n

Sliding through the tunnel at Weekday Cross and into the platforms<\/p>\n

He stared at the tunnel ahead, like the gates of hell or a Minotaur\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lair<\/p>\n

His impression of Nottingham some posters, a W H Smith, huddled travellers<\/p>\n

Then darkness and rails rumbling beneath Mansfield road, light then dark at Carrington<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He drew breath, then continued northwards mouthing the words of his speech later\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcI stand for life against death, I stand for peace against war\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/p>\n

His hand constantly drawing the symbol of the dove against his trouser leg<\/p>\n

Remembering the heat and light, the warmth of his father\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hand in his mind<\/p>\n

The doves he grew up with jinking and turning against a blue sky.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At the exact spot where a year later the first Rolls Royce Avon prototype Canberra bomber***<\/p>\n

crashed on Bulwell Common station\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n

*\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0Clement Atlee spoke at the Whitechapel Gallery in front of Guernica on tour January 1939.<\/p>\n

** International Brigade Spanish Civil War.<\/p>\n

*** Atlee\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Labour Government decisions 1944 and 1947.
\nOur first tactical nuclear strike aircraft\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.designed to deliver a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcBritish Nuclear deterrent\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\" \"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PICASSO\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S PEACE TRAIN   The black clouds had been building up all week Thunder rolling down from the Peaks on Nottingham, Grey drizzle trickling from the glass roof at Marylebone Station Dripped on to Pablo Picasso\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s neck as he boarded the train to Sheffield Monday 13th November 1950 early morning the train\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s steam billowed Through…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[95,33,81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lost-nottingham","category-poetry","category-poetry-research"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6nhh-uN","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1909"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1915,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1909\/revisions\/1915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}