‘Matinee at the Kings’ is one of Lynda O’Neill’s poems about a Portsmouth family childhood in the post-war era. Its evocation of shows, including pantomimes, at the King’s Theatre is rich, fond, and closely observed. This poem was first published in South Poetry Magazine and is reproduced here with the kind permission of the author.

Matinee at the Kings

Sometimes we were giddy up in The Gods
and the stairs must have been
a breathy struggle for Nan,
vast in her fifties under the loose grey coat.

Or we sat in the pricier stalls,
gazed at the circle, upper circle,
the other worldliness of those who could afford a box
in the preposterous splendour of
this red and gilt wedding cake.
Mum had seen Noël and Gertie here
in Private Lives, Noël laughing
in the street with a sailor afterwards.

The cast’s faces strained from weekly rep
or jobbing actors glad to tour as Buttons,
they swept us along with ‘He’s behind you!’
No blank-eyed comics or third rung soap stars
made the baffling puns my children
would suffer thirty years on.
Ugly Sisters in red wigs terrified me,
kept their big feet and fourteen stone
well away from the cardboard set.

Nan’s arm went like a piston
into our shilling quarter of toffees
and she still had room for a Walls vanilla tub.
The principal boy slapped her thigh,
held out a grubby satin shoe for Cinders.
The wondrous gold coach,
haltingly pulled by a Shetland pony
(would it shit?) pulled her away to
Happy Ever After.

Outside lamp lights were dim in
the Southsea fog. Time to
walk back to Nan’s house,
crumpets toasted on the fire, home made jam,
the surreal path of my childhood.

Lynda O’Neill was born and brought up in Portsmouth, where many of her poems are based. O’Neill had a happy working-class childhood with the freedom typical of the period. She failed the 11-plus and attended Kingston Modern School for Girls (now The Portsmouth Academy). During her last two years she learnt shorthand and typing, skills which were in high demand in the post-war period.

After the age of sixteen she worked for Portsmouth City Council and Portsmouth City Police, and when she moved to Winchester in 1973, she worked for Hampshire Fire Brigade. After having two children, she worked for Hampshire County Council, and her last job was with Winchester City Council, where she held the historic distinction of being made redundant as the last remaining member of its typing pool. These jobs provided O’Neill with interest, amusement, and several longstanding friendships.

In the eighties, a colleague suggested she try a Creative Writing course and O’Neill’s literary ambitions began. For some years she attended a local arts centre with three different tutors and discovered an aptitude for poetry. An abiding fascination with behaviour, community, and lifestyles means that O’Neill’s poetry abounds with fascinating and striking people. Her subjects include family life, childhood, school, and marriage, as well as her experiences of package holidays and not having had a swinging sixties. Her verse is rich, vivid, and precise, its backward glance affectionate but never nostalgic, forensic but never cynical.

Two of O’Neill’s poems were published in the anthology, The Ticking Crocodile (Blinking Eye, 2004), judged by Linda France, and five poems in the anthology This Island City: Portsmouth in Poetry (Spinnaker Press, 2010). Her work has been published in Poetry Nottingham International, Iota, The New Writer, and several times in South Poetry Magazine. She has acted as co-judge for the latter three times, is one of its regular reviewers, and was the profiled poet in South 42.

O’Neill won first prize in the Mere (Dorset) poetry competition in 2001 and Hampshire County Council’s ‘Words and Walks’ competition in 2009. She has been placed in competitions judged by illustrious poets Alison Chisholm, U. A. Fanthorpe, Selima Hill, Carole Satyamurti, Ian McMillan, and Matthew Sweeney.

O’Neill belongs to a network of older women poets, Second Light, and regularly attends their workshops and annual residential courses. She is also a founding member of the North Hampshire Stanza Group and a regular reader at Loose Muse, held at Winchester Library. She has for some years attended a monthly workshop of Hampshire poets who offer encouragement, constructive criticism, and a literary community.

If you have any comments, corrections, or suggestions in relation to the map please contact Dr Mark Frost, English Department, University of Portsmouth: mark.frost@port.ac.uk