He wants the bombs to blow up Slough so there is nothing left mostly because of all the canteens, which serve tinned foods. In the next verse, Betjeman is saying that we are becoming artificial because we are eating artificial food; there is no more fresh food to be eaten. One can see this view in the next verse:
‘Come, bombs, and blow to smithereens
Those air-conditioned, bright canteens
Tinned fruit…
Tinned minds, tinned breath.’
He now has gone from talking about the town and now talks about the food sold in the city, how that’s changed from being natural to tinned which is the new ‘now’ food. One can almost feel Betjeman’s anger because Slough has changed into such a depressing town. He makes the point that it should be bombed because it is so awful.
In the fourth and fifth verses Betjeman talks about how much he hates capitalists, how they always cheat and win. One can tell this as he describes the man as repulsive. He then wants them to suffer as they cause so much pain to women as said in the fourth verse:
‘…Washes his repulsive skin
In women’s tears,’
He wants the bombs to fall on them and make them experience pain instead of the women one can see this because he says in the fifth verse:
‘…And smash his hands so used to stroke…
And make him yell.’
Although Betjeman mostly uses place for inspiration he now has gone on to speak about the people who live in Slough and how they’ve modernised like the city has.
In verse nine he talks about the women of Slough. They are as fake as the city because they die their hair instead of leaving it their natural colour and dry it with hair dryers instead of letting it dry naturally in the air. This is unnatural.
‘…Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in Synthetic air…’
In the last verse he has used repetition of the first line that shows he must really want the bombs to come. After the bombs come he wants the city to return to the countryside. He wants to get rid of the artificial foods and return to organic foods.
Middlesex has quite a busy rhythm at the start, which fits in with the business of the city and the travelling of the train in the first verse. Elaine has to work hard to fight her way through the crowd so she finds herself saying a lot of ‘thank-you’s’ for letting her pass and ‘excuse me’s’ as she gets off the train. Betjeman describes the station as concrete because it is modern and cold. The town is eating its way into nearby villages but Betjeman asks ‘it’ to spare rural Middlesex, as it is paradise compared with London as he portrays in the first verse:
‘Out into the outskirts edges
Where a few surviving hedges
Keep alive our lost Elysium-rural Middlesex again.’
Although Betjeman is talking about Middlesex, he talks about the business of a different city and a person from Middlesex.
In the third verse Betjeman notices the designer labels Elaine wears, her ‘Windsmoor’ and ‘Jacqmar’ scarf, which hides her hair. Again this has nothing to do with Middlesex. Elaine has a television, which must have been extremely modern at this time.
In the third verse Betjeman is thinking of his own memories of the river Brent. The river used to be left to its own devices and find its own way through Wembley, but as you follow the river down you will see lots of changes as it fills the meadowlands, which are its flood plain.
‘Gentle Brent, I used to know you
Wandering Wembley-wards at will,
Now what change your waters show you
In the meadowlands you fill!’
In this verse Betjeman has again changed from writing about Elaine he now writes about the river.
In the last verse he now has approached a small village in rural Middlesex, which is surrounded by fields, which is natural scenery instead of concrete stations in the first verse. There are small country pubs for the ‘real people’. These people that are not proper are buried under the pollution of the big cities not the tourists that come from London.
‘Taverns for the bona fide,
Cockney anglers, cockney shooters…
Long in Kensal Green and Highgate silent under soot and stone.’
Betjeman has now changed from place at the start of the verse and has gone on to say that the little country pubs are only meant to be for the locals, not the tourists, this is about the people not Middlesex.
Betjeman uses place as his initial inspiration. Having considered this as his starting point he then explored other subjects, for example how the places had changed from how he remembered them or the people who lived in the places he describes or the architecture of the buildings. The sense of place made him then want to pursue other ideas. He makes other points as well as writing about the specific town, village, seaside etc. Place seems very important to Betjeman.