Holiday homes.

 Holiday mobile homes

Holiday mobile homes fan out

Around the playground to the sea

Each one with its picket fence

Complete with aerial for kids TV. 

A chance to leave the town behind

To live a different life at slower pace

Where boys can run and girls can play

From early morning to the end of day. 

To allow the young ones freedom

That their parents once enjoyed 

Before the gangs and drugs took over

Before the kids had phones

That keep an eye on them,

That overlook, invigilate, 

That cramp their style and navigate,

A world now like a police state. 

Big SUV’s parked tidily

Beside each mobile immaculately 

With window boxes and with swings 

Each careful owner leaves his mark. 

No foreign flights, no passport queues 

A meander down the motorway 

A hundred miles to another world

A world of shorts and playgrounds. 

The cries of laughter fill the park

From early morning until dark

The children make their own fun here

Once up they never see their bedrooms. 

Three generations wipe the sleep

From their eyes upon their decks

The skies are grey but what the heck?

If the rain keeps off they’re laughing.