The Newbury Fugitive

Slough can take literary disparagement on the chin – but not so other towns…

- Chris Pascoe

If ever two pictures, emailed to me by different people within minutes of each other, could have been more in tandem, I don’t know how.

OK, most people I know are aware of my connections with Slough so I receive a few emails about the place – but for comic timing, this coincidence was perfect.

The first had an extract from of one of once Poet Laureate John Betjeman’s most famous verses:

Come friendly bombs, and fall on Slough,

It isn’t fit for humans now,

There isn’t grass to graze a cow. Swarm over, Death! Then, moments later I received a photo of a plaque on Slough Town Hall’s wall that read: WELCOME TO SLOUGH. AN ANTINUCLEAR TOWN.