"Which poet wrote the 1937 poem which begins ""Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough, It isn't fit for humans now""?"
History of Slough protest poem in 1937 from John Betjeman, called "Slough", beginning ""Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough..."". Ironically, during the Second World War, the town, which also became home to an Emergency Hospital for casualties from London, experienced a series of air raids, most frequently in October 1940. Local air raid deaths and a smaller number of deaths at the Emergency Hospital account for the 23 civilian lives recorded lost in Slough Municipal Borough. After the war, several further large housing developments arose to take large numbers of people migrating from war-damaged London, notably the London County Council estates at
Slough (poem) "Come Friendly Bombs", and an earlier song entitled "Swarm Over Death" (released on the band's 2005 demo) features the lyrics "Come friendly bombs/ And fall here now/ It isn't fit for humans now/ Swarm over death". Morrissey used a similar theme in relation to the decline of British coastal resorts in his song "Everyday Is Like Sunday". In the first series of "The Office", which is set in Slough, Ricky Gervais, in the character of David Brent, reads extracts of the poem interjected with comments such as "You don't solve town planning problems by dropping bombs all over the place."