10p for a cup of Tea?

This picture and the following poem are pretty old, as they refer to days when you could actually sit down in a cafe and have a cup of tea for 10p - unless you were a tramp.......

10p For A Cup Of Tea.

Who dares 

Ask questions like that?

Man with twigs in hair

Spittle in beard

Whose out-thrust paw

Has mushrooms growing

Between the fingers

And dead rivers crossing the palm.                                                                                                                                                                          

                                                      He asks more than we can give

                                                      And he makes the town look untidy

                                                      When all we want to do is live

                                                      Not forgive.

                                                      BUT HE COULD BE ME.

 

                                                     Don’t say that my children –

                                                     You don’t know where that thought has been.

                                                     But come with me down to the shore.

                                                     I have a plastic bucket,

                                                     A spade as well.

                                                     Come bury me my children

                                                     Before the tide comes in.