"Charity Begins At Home"

I'm on my way to work
Come out of the Overground
There's no way you will believe
What I have just found.
I went through the barrier
Getting off at Surrey Quays
Or going by its proper name
Surrey Docks, if you please.
I've nothing against charity
As long as it's for a good cause
Went to grab a coin from my pocket
And then I had to pause.
'Bethnal Green Tube Disaster'
During an air raid in the War
Your East End Cockney sparrers' crushed
Crumbled on the staircase and the floor.
It's not the cause I object to
Simply the location
You're the wrong side of the River
This is a South London station.
Pay for your own memorial
You tight East End gits
Pretedning to be chirpy and caring
Until it comes to paying for your Blitz.
Why not go begging to your royalty
They've got a bob or two
Descendants of the dear Queen Mum
Who said she felt like one of you.
When a bomb fell on Buck House
She could lookthe East End the eye
What about Bermondsey, Camberwell & Peckham
That was our fucking cry!
Now I'm not defending Hitler
That clearly wouldn't be right
But the only thing he did half honourable
Was to to bomb east London out of sight.
The only reason I'd contribute to
The memorial to Bethnal Green's dead
Was to remind me lots were West Ham fans
Making it worth giving you my bread!

Dulwich Poet 9th December 2014

(I was surprised to get off the train this morning and seeing bucket collectors for a memorial at Bethnal Green station, where 173 people where crushed in a rush to get into an air raid shelter, in March 1943. The appeal was set up in 2007, and they're still collecting. I have no problem with the memorial, I just didn't like the fact that they had 'encroached' south of the river!)