‘Song of the South’ (May 2021) by Liz Neal is typical of the poet’s engagement with an adopted city that she has grown to adore. It is a vibrant evocation of Portsmouth’s past, and in particular its association with the sea. Centred on those who made their living in and around the port and the Hard, it is full of examples of Pompey’s rich and unique dialect that conjure the noise and bustle of bygone Portsmouth. Its references to mudlarks – children who made their living by searching for items in the foreshore by the Hard – link the poem to John Sedden’s 2005 novel, Mudlark, that features nearby on this map. The final stanza appears to allude to an incident in which an old woman’s pipe caused a gunpowder explosion. The poem is quoted here with the kind permission of the author.

Song of the South

Oy, mush – mind the dockyard oysters!
call lairy dockies
who pedal rickety boneshakers
to and fro their shifts
where they unload crates,
their energy recycled
into money for bread.

Dip me ’ead for a sparesy
plead Mudlarks
who dive in the mudflats
for pennies thrown by passersby,
then scolded and scrubbed
in the back yards of Portsea
for their trouble.

Shut up yer squinnyin’
chide mothers
as they dish up a clip round the ear
alongside bread and marg
and hot, sweet tea
before fathers come home
with a day’s pay from the Yard.

’Ag an’ ’one
cry the totters
who clip-clop toward terraces,
get drunk on their profits
then carried home on their carts
by world-weary nags
to Sunday roasts.

Put tha’ ait, yu dinlo!
advice to the washerwoman
who sits at the quayside,
smokes her pipe
and knocks it clean on pebbles
while soldiers unload gunpowder
from ships.

Liz Neal is originally from Swansea but has been living and working in Portsmouth for the past 40 years. She is a keen amateur poet who contributed regularly to Tongues and Grooves, a monthly Portsmouth-based music and poetry group and, with her partner John, wrote for the Ocean FM radio soap Conway Street until its demise at the end of 2010. She is an active member of the Havelock Writing Group, Portsmouth Poetry Society Stanza Group, and Havant Poets, taking part in many city-based projects. Liz has been published in South Magazine and various online platforms, and was short-listed in the Live Canon International Poetry Competition 2020 with a poem about Jack the Ripper's last victim. She works in a Clinical Support role at her partner's podiatry practice and plays clarinet in the Trinity Wind Ensemble. Liz says that although she feels Welsh in her heart, she feels at home and safe in her adopted island city, and is delighted to be part of this amazing project.

If you have any comments, queries, or suggestions about any of the map entries, please contact the Map Director, Mark Frost: mark.frost@port.ac.uk