The Pub at Winson Green

This is the pub for Derelict Sunday.

On visiting for the first time
 
Down the Sunday morning quiet roads through the suburbs.
Cross the canal, cross the railway line, silent in the sunshine.
Arrive under the looming walls topped with wire. 
Apprehension leaps.
 
Tiny carpark for a big place.  Where now?  What to do?
A foreign world.
 
Visitor centre.  Show the ID.  Have you got the right ones?  Photo?  Address?
First Timers next window please.
Another queue.  Fingerprints taken.  Photo taken.  You can’t take that in…
 
Cross the road, walk alongside those walls so stern and forbidding.
Another scraggy queue of people just like us and not like us.
Families, babies, wives, mates, lovers, young and old, tentative and certain.
 
Fingerprints again, Check possessions.  Nothing electronic.
No, you can’t take your Fitbit in…  Delay,  Delay.
Xray machine like an airport.  Into the body scanner.
Put your loose coins here.  No more than £30 per table.
Frisking, electronic scan, now collect the boxers and socks and the coins for a drink…
 
Go through that door.  Wait.  More people.
Door slides shut with a clunk, next door opens, shuffle through,
Follow those who know what they are doing.  Wait
Door slides shut with a clunk.  Wait for the next iron grid door to be unlocked.
Someone opens it.
Like a procession up the stairs.  Wait again.
 
Fingerprint.  Leave your ID here, you can’t take that in.
Stand on that line.  Wait for the sniffer dog.  Black Lab.  Clever dog.
 
Walk in to the hall.  He’s there.  Sitting.  Waiting.  In the throng of loneliness.
Lack of knowledge.  Lack of understanding. What is going on here?
We wish we knew properly.  He stands and sobs and hugs. 
A 25 year old young man for whom we hope life will never be the same.
But what will it be and where will we all be?

Give us strength, Lord.