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How I remember Adrian
• THE first time I met Adrian Mitchell was when I was at Speakers’ Corner at Easter 1964 with a dozen other peace activists.
We were fasting for 13 days and speaking out publicly against the Vietnam war.
Mitchell, together with Joan Baez, came along to support us and he read us the first version of his poem Tell Me Lies About Vietnam, with its deliberate use of the then very popular party piece rhythm of the hokey-cokey.
The poem caught on because it was easily memorable and said the right things in a highly difficult political period.
As Mitchell was to remark later, the mass demonstrations against the war and the outcry of artists, poets and intellectuals at least managed to keep “British troops out of the Vietnam war”.
Mitchell was a good comrade and helped whenever he could. I was with him on the anti-nuclear train to Windscale and he and Lol Coxhill read us poems and played music.
When Torriano Meeting House was formed he became one of its founders, together with fellow poets Bernard Kops and John Heath-Stubbs.
Mitchell last read his poetry there in May 2008 at the opening of the exhibition of posters and other memorabilia commemorating the 40-year anniversary of the 1968 protests.
Mitchell was exemplary among the anti-war poets as he was willing to write his imperishable verse in the simplest possible language, so that people could understand him instantly.
Not for him the current academic vogue of hidden meanings, putting the responsibility on the reader to make sense of the verbiage.
I was fortunate to have heard him read. He had a loving, brotherly voice. Reading through his poems, his voice stays unmistakeably in my head.
It was characteristic of Mitchell that he didn’t allow his poems to be used in exams. Why should his poems add to the torture of children?
He once sat an examination of his own poems and, amazingly, he managed to fail the test.
It must be understood that it was his poetic calling that made Mitchell a better man than most of us. He was, after all, a very well-paid journalist on such hack papers as the London Evening Standard and The Sunday Times when he dropped out in the mid-1960s.
His most famous poem’s first line was both personal and universal in meaning:
“I was run over by the truth one day./Ever since the accident I’ve walked this way/So stick my legs in plaster/Tell me lies about Vietnam.”
He would have been there today demonstrating against the latest war.
In his memory we must make an effort to bring about a society that we all can be proud of, a society without privilege, exploitation and coercion.
JOHN RETY
Torriano Avenue, NW1
To Whom It May Concern
(Tell me lies about Vietnam)
I was run over by the truth one day.
Ever since the accident I’ve walked this way
So stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.
Heard the alarm clock screaming with pain,
Couldn’t find myself so I went back to sleep again
So fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.
Every time I shut my eyes all I see is flames.
Made a marble phone book and I carved all the names
So coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.
I smell something burning, hope it’s just my brains.
They’re only dropping pepper- mints and daisy-chains
So stuff my nose with garlic
Coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.
Where were you at the time of the crime?
Down by the Cenotaph drinking slime
So chain my tongue with whisky
Stuff my nose with garlic
Coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.
You put your bombers in, you put your conscience out,
You take the human being and you twist it all about
So scrub my skin with women
Chain my tongue with whisky
Stuff my nose with garlic
Coat my eyes with butter
Fill my ears with silver
Stick my legs in plaster
Tell me lies about Vietnam.
Adrian Mitchell
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