Slough: Homage to a Poet Laureate Mystery Cache
Slough: Homage to a Poet Laureate
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(micro)
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Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow
Swarm over, Death!
Come, bombs, and blow to smithereens
Those air-conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans
Tinned minds, tinned breath.
Mess up the mess they call a town
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half-a-crown
For twenty years,
And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears,
And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.
But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.
It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead
And talk of sports and makes of cars
In various bogus Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.
In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.
Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.
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Sir John Betjeman CBE (28 August 1906 – 19 May 1984) was a poet,
writer and broadcaster who described himself in Who's Who as a
"poet and hack".
He was born to a middle class family in Edwardian London of
Germanic background. He lived here in Uffington with his first
wife, Penelope Chetwode, the daughter of a field marshal in the
British Army, Lord Chetwode. However during this period he was
British press attaché in Dublin and may have been involved with
intelligence gathering and is reported to have been selected for
assassination by the IRA until they decided that a published poet
was unlikely to be involved in such work.
Although he failed his degree at Oxford University his early
ability in writing poetry and interest in architecture would
support him throughout his life. He wrote poetry throughout his
life; starting his career as a lowly journalist he ended it as a
much loved figure on British television.
He was knighted in 1969 and became Poet Laureate in
1972.
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The above coordinates are for the recommended parking place nearby
to St Peter's.
Now the hard bit:-
Betjeman wrote a poem about suicide on Junction Road, but how many
were on the up line? answer
A
On the two large butresses at the west, gabled end, how many
knapped flint oblongs are there in each lift of the buttress? (Each
buttress has 3 lifts). Answer
B
Now place these numbers in the coords to find the cache N51
31.(A-4)81 W000
38.0(B-4)7
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Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Zntargvp