This anthology was edited by Alan Morrison and Kate Jay-R, and published by Culture Matters in 2021. Poets have continued to call out the cruelty of Tory attacks on society and community, starting with Thatcher and growing worse, especially under the government of the last 14 years. My leftist leanings are no secret. My life was changed by the 1945 education act, which put in place the chances I was given two decades later, and I am also an NHS baby. I was raised by aspirational hard-working parents who valued education although they had themselves been denied it, dad leaving school at 12 and mum at 14, yet they were both very intelligent people.
I wanted to share these three poems because I am keen to see a Labour government and I believe it’s important to remember that the Tories do not help or respect working class people. I have not had chance to share these poems in a reading, so here they are for anyone to read. They are based on my lived experiences.
Signing on in the Seventies
meant joining queues of grey-faced men
shuffling in line, flat as caps, heads down,
then grabbing a smoke outside with others
robbed of work by Thatcher’s dominoes,
pushed into falling one after another, a clatter
of shut-downs, making idleness from busyness.
All they wanted was a job: their value,
reason for living, keeping wife and kids,
scraping the rent on their terraced houses,
a pint in the pub before Sunday dinner.
Nor this shameful under-the-wife’s-feet
uselessness, pound ing the streets. Nothing doing.
I watched them as I signed on in uni holidays
wanting casual wages to eke out grant.
How could I accept work when they lacked it?
It could have been my own dad, except
industry had already scorched his lungs.
He’d taken over shopping and housework
while mum worked on, needing to be some use.
Angela Topping
Notify Us of any Change in Circumstances
I followed the rules, told them
of my marriage at the next signing on.
No more dole, my husband had to keep me,
when we were poorer than ever:
our first mortgage, only one wage coming in.
I wanted a job, but this was 1976.
Graduate jobs thin on the ground.
Still had to sign on, just no money
for bus fares, seeing parents, food
enough to last the week.
Different rules for married women.
Left me no funds to go job-hunting.
Applied for everything I could.
A job in a knitting shop I’d have loved,
denied because I was ‘over-qualified’.
Angela Topping
Dole
Dolour not dollar
Latin dolere to grieve
Sorrow
Dolen, mediaeval English
give out alms to the poor
Doled out
Earned in stamps
from wages past
not given in kindness
Begrudged
jump through hoops
pay tax on it
Child benefit deducted
no replacement for a wage
poverty
The brown envelope
The Giro
the fortnightly
No extras
Not enough for basics
Giz a job
Angela Topping
Angela Topping 
I really connect with those poems – that was the world I grew up in. No work in west London except cleaning jobs at Heathrow or dishwashing at the immigration detention centre. At least we could cram onto the tube for shopwork on Oxford Street.
Thanks for commenting. It was so frustrating having degrees which I did for self development, to be told I was over qualified for the only available jobs. I never did do any shop work. I’d have been happy to, I was desperate for a job. Eventually teaching called me and I listened. But first I had my children and had a taste of freelance poeting.
I was determined to be a scientist simply because my school teachers told me it was suitable for a girl. I did shopwork to support my first degree. After my second, I became a climate modeller – supported my husband for a long while. I neglected my poetry until my fifties.
That happens to so many women poets! I can think of a few great ones such as U A Fanthorpe. Elma Mitchell and Pamela Gillilan, who didn’t get going till their 50s. I started writing seriously at 14, had my first proper publication at 19, but was told being a poet wasn’t a career (it was kind of possible at the time). I fancied being a librarian but it was hard to get on the course with degrees because it was hard to get a years experience in a library. I was never much good at science, but you did really well! I felt our all girls grammar didn’t have great science teachers because they didn’t think any of us would go that way — they were wrong. Quite a few of our year went into Medicine and Dentistry. Very proud of them. I would have liked shop work because I am good with people, though I used to be very shy. We made our ways in the end and good for us! I never ever thought I’d go into teaching. But it turned out to be perfect for me.
Good poems Angela. writing the truth as you saw it. I have three poems in there too writing the truth as I saw it at the time too. I don’t think I knew you then . Take care and hope you are on the better side. Sally X ________________________________
We did know each other, Sally, Only 2 years ago, this. There were so many excellent contributors I didn’t want to single any one poet out. We poets have to tell the truth as we see it. We articulate unfairnesses as well as beauty. I am doing ok, reconciled to being disabled and used to the pain unless it rises above the usual strength. Hope you are doing ok too.