by Rodney Dale

’Twas Nineteen-fifty-one, and my first car –

A Rover Eight (twin cylinder, air cooled)

Called Lady C (from Waugh’s Decline and Fall) –

Bore Jeffries, Roe and me down to Land’s End,

A big adventure for three teenage boys,

(Though teenagers were scarcely heard of then),

Chugging the post-war roads in food-stuffed car,

Crammed in a dubious tent just eight by six

Each night. By day, driving through lands unknown,

Our first agreed objective being Stonehenge.

‘We’ll see it any minute now,’ said Mick

With flapping map. And – Golly! – there it was –

Far smaller than I’d e’er imagined it,

But growing bigger as we fast approached.

In those days, you could walk among the stones,

Though: ‘Please refrain from climbing on them’ said

A notice from the Ministry of Works

(Now in the guise of English Heritage

And swamped in ramifying beaurocracy).

A tourist, clearly hailing from the States

Approached a guide in obvious disgust

That monoliths so rough should be displayed

For public view, and questioned the poor man:

‘Were these stones clad to make it more ornate?’

In my mind’s ear I hear her question still,

Iambic, pentametric and naïve.

At once I thought of flimsy two by one

With hardboard fastened on with coppered pins

So that those ancient stones might be disguised

To satisfy an ignorant tourist’s whims

(Although, of course, it might have been her joke).

‘Were these stones clad to make it more ornate?’

And: ‘Don’t say stones, say "sarsens".’ murmur I

Concatenating slogans disparate ...

And thus my memory of that Stonehenge,

An unforgotten opening to our tour.