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Harold Wilson

POETRY

THE PLOT AGAINST THESE ISLANDS

David Selzer By David Selzer4 Comments1 min read1.8K views

One February night in ’74

the Army occupied Heathrow Airport.

The BBC’s Nine O’Clock news explained

the occupation was an exercise

in how to deal with a terrorist threat.

The new Prime Minister, Harold Wilson,

learned of the exercise from the TV,

recognised it as the dress rehearsal

of a coup against his premiership –

a coup that would have been sanctified

by an announcement from her Majesty,

an emergency government led by

her husband’s uncle, supported solemnly

by appropriate newspapers, and followed

by one or two assassinations –

but he kept his counsel, did not react.

 

His misdemeanors were: the wrong sort of school,

the wrong sort of accent, being ‘too clever

by half’; believed to be a KGB agent,

and to have poisoned his predecessor

as Labour leader, a Wykehamist;

believed to want peace in Ireland rather

than the IRA’s annihilation;

refusing to join the US in Nam, thus

causing the defence industry to forego

extra profits, preventing working class oiks

from becoming dead heroes, denying

regiments additional battle honours.

 

Wilson resigned less than two years later.

So, Jeremy Corbyn, what chutzpah

on your part to assume you could succeed!

 

 

 

 

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David Selzer By David Selzer
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POETRY

FIFTEEN MINUTES

David Selzer By David Selzer5 Comments1 min read2.3K views

More than four decades ago, I taught English
in a boy’s grammar, waiting for it to go
comprehensive. I can think of three
notable alumni: a Labour PM,
whose only school magazine piece was
‘Ephemera’; the lover and killer
of a fêted, controversial playwright;
and a cult film director (see below).

The classrooms were built round a courtyard –
as if the architect had worked to some
Mediterranean model. Mine
was opposite the staffroom. One lunchtime,
I was marking at my desk and looked up
to see the said director, furtive,
at the staffroom door. I continued marking.

I heard shouting and looked up again to see
a colleague pounding on the door. (There was
a gap between the lintel and the door
into which three large screws had been driven).

There was huffing and tutting and enquiries –
low profile to deter imitation –
by the Deputy, an overweight caner.
‘You were at your desk. What did you see?’
‘I was intent on my work,’ I said, grinning.
‘This is serious!’ ‘Indeed it is,’ I said,
laughing. Courtesy of Mrs. Thatcher,
the school never went comprehensive. I left.

It never occurred to me to betray
such a consummate piece of performance art,
such an exquisite act of irony –
the masters trapped in their privilege,
imprisoned in their ignorance – but rather
held the knowledge close like a password
to my identity. I disclose it now
I am almost certain who I am.

 

 

 

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David Selzer By David Selzer
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