Wednesday 8 March 2017

The Wednesday Poem #13 - The Vietnamese Boat Persons song

Left from Vietnam on a boat
but the bloody thing wouldn't stay afloat
ate the food then ate one another
had to eat my father and my mother

We're all coming to England
for the social security
I'll be living it up in England
if my children don't eat me!

Copyright 1979 Pete Conway

The Barnet Eye always welcomes poems for our Wednesday slot from local poets. Pete Conway was a local poet who lived in Mill Hill until 1980. He wrote the Vietnamese boat persons song in response to two stories in the same issue of the Daily Mail about Vietnamese refugees fleeing in boats. One news story reported that there were cases  of them having to eat each other as they were starving to death in the sea. The other, an editorial, stated that they shouldn't be let in to exploit social security. Seems like a good time to remind ourselves of this.

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