Roger McGough


and a friend as well, he had his own band – the Scaffold – and they had their own number one hit, ‘Lily the Pink’, which topped the UK charts in 1968. 40 odd years later, our current Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, describes Roger McGough as “the patron saint of poetry.” According to Time Out, “McGough has done for British poetry what champagne does for weddings.” The son of a docker who lived through the Great Depression, Roger first got a scholarship to Grammar School and then a place at Hull University, where Philip Larkin was working as a librarian. Larkin’s most notorious assertion - “They fuck you up, your mum and dad” - does not apply to Roger McGough, whose parents provided a source of inspiration for him – as in the poem featured here. One of Roger’s greatest regrets is that his father died prematurely in his fifties and never witnessed his son’s literary success. Neither hard luck nor hard times has ever stood between Roger McGough and hard work. He writes every day. He presents ‘Poetry Please’ every week on BBC Radio 4. He runs Poetry Workshops. He does voice-overs. He has absolutely no plans to retire. A man of our times, Roger McGough is still performing!


A


performance poet, originally from Liverpool, Roger McGough is a man of our times. A contemporary of the Beatles


Wearing Thin


“You’ll soon grow into it,” she would say When buying a school blazer three sizes too big And she was right as mothers usually are.


Syrup of figs. Virol. Cod liver oil, Within a year I did grow into it By then, of course, it was threadbare.


Pulling in different directions My clothes and I never matched, And in changing-rooms nothing has changed.


I can buy what I like and when New clothes that are a perfect fit, Full-length mirror, nervous grin, It’s me now that’s threadbare, wearing thin.


Photo: Katie Elliott Armitage (www.lessoeursanglaises.com)


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