They’re tearing Haigh and Hochland down,
Sharp fingers, soon to be demolished, point
Towards the greyed sky.
They’re going to build an education block
Which stretches like a black Hollywood horror blob
Along the Oxford Road:
And even to me, a short lived memory like the old H and H,
Had something precious in it.
The Manchester I have briefly known,
Has changed, even in this brief encounter,
Like a decaying amoeba.
With every moment another building topples,
Leaving a muddy bomb site to be covered by the blob
Of education precinct:
And this is how it must be; H and H, and all the other half memories
Will fall like Rome.
Perhaps in 1984,
Wiser with the accrued capital of age,
I can return.
And I will see this rolling campus plain,
Extending as far as ageing eyes will be able to see,
To the nearest drunken undergraduate:
Rolling along the Oxford Road, safe from being prematurely sent down
By a number 43 bus!
© Mike Roden 1968