(With apologies to John Betjeman's A Subaltern's Love-Song)

On cold Hamble Halt in the wind and the rain

Waiting so long for the Southampton train.

I've a date with my dear love, the jewel in my crown;

My golden-haired goddess Miss Barbara Brown.

Grey through the gloom comes the Southampton train,

Creaking and groaning as if wracked with pain.

I'm finding my seat when, with some hesitation,

Shaken by slammed doors, the train leaves station.

Netley, then Sholing, three more stations to go;

Then a plunge into darkness with dim lamps aglow.

At the end of the tunnel the platform I see,

Where the light of my life will be waiting for me.

I'm so mad about gadabout girl about town,

My blue-eyed blonde beauty Miss Barbara Brown;

Who stands on the platform with petulant pout;

Wet, windswept and weary from waiting about.

I hasten to hold her, say it's not my fault

That I lingered so long on the bleak Hamble Halt,

For the eight o'clock train came at quarter past nine;

Delayed by the dreaded damp leaves on the line.

Joan Rolfe,

Southampton