One of my boyhood memories is of returning to a wrecked home after Bert and Irene’s final fight, to find my pet mice dead in their Woolworth’s biscuit tin, left behind in the rush to Blackpool and sanctuary. And for a child, there is nothing as upsetting as losing your favourite pets. Also, there is nothing more alien than a holiday resort in winter, a place that had once provided happy memories in summer sun, now shuttered and shunning its domestic refugees. In this poem, I’ve pushed the envelope by mainly doubling-up rhyming words.