The street unlike others slopes violently down towards a peaceful river

This peculiarity goes unnoticed by many

Children roll red marbles towards the far gutters and are cursed by passers by

Tis a dangerous game you play young Harry

If a car does not end your life then you will scatter pedestrians with your silly game

I will call a policeman straight away

And as for you Julie Griggs a policeman’s daughter just look at your dress

Mrs Morris who owns the dress shop near the church sits next to me

We share tea and the occasional biscuit

Our High Street is the widest in the country

I do not answer as I know that Stockton-On-Tees has a wider street

It was built for the Bath trade

Coaches and horses by the dozen stopped in the town

Until the railways came and killed them off

The town had two stations now both closed

And Marlborough is once more stranded in its magical valley

Where children play marbles to the detriment of others

And where young ladies late of the college smoke in alleys

Away from their teachers and their mothers prim

It is the most dangerous of markets I believe

With careless traffic on both sides

I wonder why we are not killed on market days

Mr Pears the travelling florist is sitting at an adjacent table

I lost some roses to a careless bus

 And what about the July sponges spread all over the road

Summer chaos such I have never seen

What a mess Mr Robert’s sponges were reported as far away as Salisbury

Murray the grocer said

As the left the café full of dread

I looked at the skies the rich vapour light was now receding with cause

Clouds were building from the west and would soon arrest the sun

I must be off now

I said with a shallow bow

My wife has done her time

At the Gleaming Plough

What was her talk about today Mr Henderson?

Millie the waitress stood at my side

Shy within her question

She was giving a talk on the poems of a countryman

It had gathered much interest although the author was not Wiltshire born

I raised my hand and then I was gone through the middle wooden door

There are no theatres in the town but I imagined one as I walked towards the common

Plays new and old would be performed and music would drift on the breeze

Towards the royal hunting grounds where the ghosts of Kings would listen with interest

You are five minutes late

I was detained by my friends

In the Polar Café I suppose

How was your talk?

Well received as they always are

Let me take your bag for the hill is steep

When I was a child I rolled green marbles down this hill

You were a legend in this town Julie Griggs that is why I married you

As we neared the common mists were beginning to cover the town

This was not unusual and only the festive lights could be seen

Even our footsteps seemed muffled as we approached our home lane

The town will be quiet tonight you know

I think not as it is New Year’s Eve

The town is always quiet when the mists arrive

Its peculiar slope has been blamed

But I know that not to be true

It’s the fault of the river and the churches two

It’s the fault of the college and the velvet dew