{"id":2734,"date":"2023-10-04T17:37:04","date_gmt":"2023-10-04T16:37:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/?p=2734"},"modified":"2025-05-14T07:23:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T06:23:10","slug":"new-poems-dead-centre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/?p=2734","title":{"rendered":"New Poems: Dead Centre"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"633\" height=\"209\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/camp.png?resize=633%2C209&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"POW camp and housing\" class=\"wp-image-2735\" style=\"width:633px;height:209px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/camp.png?w=633&amp;ssl=1 633w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/camp.png?resize=300%2C99&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 633px) 100vw, 633px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>DEAD CENTRE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If England was a target and you were looking at cross hairs<br>In the centre of the cross hairs would probably be Didcot<br>The most normal town in England according to the pollsters<br>The 11<sup>th<\/sup> worst place to live according to crap towns<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My home town, the town my family still live in, die in<br>A town that should not really be there, a ghost town<br>Only there because the residents of Abingdon and Oxford<br>refused the nasty dirty mess that they called a railway<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So Brunel bent the line through a village called Didcot<br>They been taking other people\u2019s shit there ever since<br>First it was provisions for the railway and a huge depot<br>Logistics was invented there to provide fodder for horses<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Didcot has been a place to move stuff through and to ever since<br>From the army barracks, to the brand new Tesco mega storerooms<br>Where my family froze in huge freezers as warehouse operatives<br>Work for people with nowhere to go or reaching the end of the line<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s the town people joke about, Didcot Parkway, <br>A place to glide through on the way to better destinations<br>Poets and novelists mention it in passing never stopped there<br>Never ventured off the trains to actually see it, a place holder<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A place fit for commuters and immigrants, CHAVs and drug dealers<br>No place that anybody wants to live in for long, or stay forever<br>My parents grave is situated 500 yards from their council house<br>Now partitioned and resold built on a prisoner of war camp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thousands of lifetimes wiped away now and brushed into the past<br>Like the post-war immigrants who found a home there that could last<br>From Poland and Italy, Germany, Slovakia and the death camps<br>They preferred the dead centre of everything to anywhere else<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They escaped the cross hairs and started again.<br>Built new lives and blessed every day that was normal<br><br>Thrived and felt safe.<br>Normal. Ignored. <br><br>No longer a target. <br><br>Dead centre.&nbsp;<br><br><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DEAD CENTRE If England was a target and you were looking at cross hairsIn the centre of the cross hairs would probably be DidcotThe most normal town in England according to the pollstersThe 11th worst place to live according to crap towns My home town, the town my family still live in, die inA town&#8230;<\/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_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[33,59,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","category-politics","category-new-poems"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6nhh-I6","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2734","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=2734"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3587,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2734\/revisions\/3587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/writing\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}