Under The Bridge January 18th 2021

Under the bridge where the water flows past
Is a man in a bed who is free at last.
He lived in this place in his ragged clothes
When people went by they turned up their nose.
He had no TV or internet connection
He had no means to vote in the election.
Pictures in his head while he froze in the Cold
Wondering how he lived to be so old.
Down in the town he would beg for food
Eating scraps improved his mood.
His water came from the mouldering canal
This was his world, a private hell.
How did he get here, did he come by boat
How come his life just didn’t float.
It did for a while, he had a house
There he lived like a little mouse.
Lost his job at the stroke of a pen
Man in the office said he didn’t need men.
The world was changing, all re arranged
It helped you survive if you were deranged.
His wife went to work and he lost her approval
She called the police who sorted his removal.
She said he had started speaking out of turn
Not good enough now he couldn’t earn.
She had a job at the local bank
Then ran off with a very rich Yank.
She took him to court for his abuse
When truth be told he was no more use.
She copped the lot of his life time achievement
So off he walked with his bereavement
All squeezed into two battered cases,
He was just another loser in the human races.
Robert Cook January 18th 2021
Never Stop – by Robert Cook

Never Stop – by Robert Cook
Helen , Barbara and You
Three loves that were true
I see them all in all their glory
Each one had their very own story.
Helen was a girl way too pretty
Lived in the north of my favourite city
Way to young for a fool like me
She was the one I shouldn’t see.
Barbara was mature and sophisticated
She was the one I loved and hated
Way to cool and smart for me
Though maybe not, just couldn’t see
Then along came you to my desolation
Way to close like my relation
Still I muse but cannot say
Were you night, or were you day ?
I never knew, there was no chance
We didn’t walk & didn’t dance.
We played our music, sang our song
We loved a while but not for long.
Life is short, we made it shorter
Were you my love or long lost daughter ?
When we singers sing and write
We play with dark, we play with light.
We take the world that gives us pain
If we were normal we’d be insane.
All these things are as they are
Sometimes near or way too far.
As they say, you can’t return
You can’t pay if you don’t earn
Earning love is is earning pain
Mainly loss for little gain .
The world for me was once elastic,
Now all things melt like cheap plastic.
We find ourselves through mainstream media
Love is lost, its all much seedier.
Still old friends where ever now
Just accept it all, don’t ask how.
Keep on moving till you drop.
Keep on hoping, never stop.
Robert Cook January 19th 2021
Imagine the sound, London Underground 2010.



If he saw us kinds in his fields, over the wall behind our little house, he would run after us waving his stick. His daughter Elsie was one of my mum’s playates in the 1920 and 30s. Mrs Hone was a very precise woman, always immaculately dressed and her hair done nicely.
The first vehicle I ever drove was a Massey Ferguson 35 tractor when I started working on Shipton Farm, aged 13. I was pulling a trailer loaded with the old cubic rectangle shaped bales. They were hell to load on the trailer, late on a summer night when the dew had come down. But mother needed the money and we country boys were raised to be in harmony with nature and struggle. Boys would never get that sort of experience now in a fake disineguous health and safety mad ( sic ) world.
I painted this picture yesterday whilst also watching the film ‘Hanah’. It is influenced by my memories of old Winslow and Jack Hone. His fields are now full of houses and McQuoradale long gone.
R.J Cook October 12th 2020

AEC were the original London bus builders, ultimately ruined when Leyland got a foot in the door helping to build RTs to make up for wartime losses. Their version was called the RTL, easily distinguised by the radiator which did not have the split trim and triangualar red and blue AEC badge.
This picture is meant to represent AEC Bridgemaster 6116BH, number 3 in the Aylesbury ‘Red Rover ‘ fleet, parked up opposite the company offices in Aylesbury’s Buckingham Road before the demolition man changed the landscape.
The Bridgemaster was not a popular design, with very bouncy air suspension among other faults. It was intended to compete with the National Bus Company’s Bristol Lodekka in areas where there were low bridges, hence the type’s name .
R.J Cook








‘A water colour monochrome by R.J Cook