I could (I suppose) have been there
but unlikely the station was demolished
in 1966 comprehensively and insensitively
intones a history written by train buffs
I have visited the area many times
on my first the ground crunched
under my step in winter
through the fence across the hoar
on the way to a country pub for lunch
I read those Dannie Abse poems readily available
casually passing through a familiar landscape
then later in the novel I was re-reading *
a character takes his lover in hand
to that poem where nothing happens Adlestrop
I think he’s got his Welsh poets mixed
not Edward Thomas but Abse
Not Adlestrop as I remember
then I see the linkage expressed
but not acknowledged and it all becomes clear
speeding down the Cotswold Line
from Oxfordshire to Gloucestershire
*Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan