Poem for Today

Tea or Coffee . . .?

White coated ladies in muslin hats

keep orange juice cool in revolving vats.

Tea is kept bubbling away in the urn . . .

“I’ll have a rest, it’s time for your turn” . . .

Name-tabs proclaim, Mrs …….., By the till,

Mrs ……… is polishing the tabletops still!

One coffee, with cream that floats on the top,

two teas, one orange, will the trade never stop!

Some people are coming, standing in queues,

some on their own, others in twos.

The floors are now swept, the ash-trays are clean,

off to our homes to settle and dream,

of orange juice silently standing in vats,

and white-coated ladies in neat muslin hats.

© 1969 Colin Gordon-Farleigh

I remember sitting in the cafeteria section of the then fairly newly opened Debenhams Store in the shopping precinct at Swindon when I penned these lines, inspired by the busy tea-ladies who were serving on that day.