Just Help Yourself

Philip Hancock

We’ve been renovating the house again. In the week before our summer holiday both Phil the Painter and Gary Small Jobs are around – mostly at different times. The thing about Phil the Painter is he’s also a poet. Just Help Yourself is his second pamphlet. His first pamphlet, he tells me, was a Guardian choice for book of the year. The thing about Gary, apart from his facility for fixing things, quickly and cleverly, is his lovely, easy-going spirit, not to mention his perplexing, frustrating, wonderful refusal to charge proper money for the work he does.

They cross paths only once – on our street – as Gary arrives in his flash new van (that I encouraged him to buy) and Phil is leaving with his bag of overalls and brushes. To my surprise and disappointment Gary launches into a routine about how easy it is to paint – and why he mostly won’t paint, even though he’s very good at it. To illustrate his point in a manly way – once he’s made sure Alice is not watching – he pretends to unzip his fly. Painting is as easy as taking a piss. Phil smiles, quick as a flash replies, ‘Yes, and if you’re not careful, you’ll pee all over the seat as well.’

By this I learn that Phil is accustomed to bullshit and bravado and can defend himself in the classiest way – with humor. His poems do the same. Mostly they are poems about physical work – and mostly they are imbued with a great, warm, dry, affectionate and sometimes – my favorite – even slapstick sense of humor.

Each poem fits on one page of the pamphlet. Each has a little story to tell. And like the work it describes, each is down-to-earth and built for a purpose. In The Great Concert Hall a work crew makes repairs while entertained by stories of the merchant navy and rehearsing their social lives. In Over 21s a young man borrows his father’s garish dinner jacket to get into a nightclub. In Ladsanddads an older man drives up to the football pitches and wonders whether, given a bit more encouragement, he might have made a decent player. In Woodruff & Sons some kids trespass on a waste disposal site. In Half Day a man absconds from his office job to lay some flagstones at his own home. In Inside Job a decorator stumbles on his female employer’s stash of nude photographs. Martini Man is about a Lothario who has it off with women in the back of his messy work van. Perks is about nicking stuff from the workplace and Friday, one of the funniest poems, is about a group of workmen smashing up televisions.

Many of the poems are quite practical – such as To Carry A Ladder, which lays down specific instructions: Run it up to the sky on its heel / Get a shoulder under it – take the weight, / and feel for the point of balance. Others are about work politics. Double Take describes a youngster’s embarrassment at meeting his boss while out shopping (in Lewis’s, the sales/ You pray he’s not seen you, / riffle the clothes rail.) Another, Knowing one’s Place, talks about a young man trying to conceal his growing interest in books: After the miles behind, / the years catching up, / I’m on that beach with Meursault, / the sun of Algiers unforgiving…

The last poem, A Year On, is a poignant one. A guy is helping a lady through the anniversary of the end of a relationship. We don’t know what went wrong – something did – but he is gently encouraging her to throw out the junk, move on, buy herself some nice new clothes: I point out smart heels in Ravel, / catch her giggle in the window, / Benetton colors jazz her up: / she’s still got the figure, / sod the neighbours. You feel involved. Or how about this one?…

A Drink with the Captain
After lunch the apprentices egg him on.
Last week it was the Magellan Strait,
that one where the kitten grew and grew,
prowled the deck. Davy’s hat. No Davy.
Today it’s Madgascar: the merchant ship
off course, torpedoes, sharks,
One sweep of his freckled hand:
I knew exactly what to do. Later he’d sipped
malt matured in sherry casks with the Captain.
Rain pummels our Portakabin.
Through the window, the backs of the estate:
missing tiles, peeling windows, dogs,
still over an hour before we can go.

After Phil leaves I make lunch for Gary – and Millie, Alice and their several friends. It’s summer. The girls eat on the verandah – fried eggs, toast and olives. Gary and I are eating in the kitchen. I give him Phil’s poems to read. Maybe they’ll tickle him. But no, he won’t even pretend. They’re not his cup of tea.

Fair enough – but they are very much my cup of tea: poetry I can understand and enjoy, free of rhymes, full of rhythm, bursting with emotion recollected in tranquility. Nice job, Phil. I’m grateful.

For more information or to buy Phil’s pamphlet click here