My Mum and the Beatles

She heard the music

but still she walked past

the Cavern in those heady early days

before the sixties came swinging in,

intent on shopping – her bottom drawer

full of linen, not vinyl.

Come with us!  Her friends chattering

in the Cotton Exchange typing pool,

then the tap… tap… tap

of her heels on polished floors

and pavements down to Lewis’s,

blushing below the naked statue –

all that to come – her mother measuring

her twenty one inch waist, the snip

of pinking sheers through satin

those last Waterloo evenings,

Her friends still hummed

with pop and possibilities:

These four are fab! Come with us!

But she never did go.

All she needed was love

Love, she said, is all you need.