long way home

I hadn’t heard of Robert Service until 20+ years ago, when I was in a pub with a few work colleagues. I’d admitted that I’d never taken to poetry and one of them was urging me to read some Philip Larkin. I was saying I’d give it a try when I had more time, when I was interrupted by an inebriated stranger in dirty work clothes, with the words, “It is later than you think”. He suggested I should get on with it and start reading poetry straightaway, but he dismissed Larkin as a misanthrope and said I should begin with something by “the Kipling of the Yukon”. He then went on to recite several of Service’s poems very loudly. He finished by challenging me to an arm-wrestling match. I went along with it to avoid offending him (he had the air of an unexploded bomb) and lost 2/1 (he let me win once, I think). When he’d finished he staggered to the bar, leaving me at an empty table, my companions all having slinked off to another one while I was distracted. Drunk or not, his recommendation was a good one.

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