Miss Thompson Goes Shopping

‘Miss Thompson Goes Shopping’ was first published in 1921 and is probably the poem for which Martin Armstrong (1882-1974), one of the so-called ‘Georgian Poets’, is best known today. The poem is a piece of pure fun and one can’t help picturing Armstrong smiling to himself as he wrote it. It tells of a shopping trip in the days before supermarkets, detailing the characterful shops and shop-keepers and an irresistible impulse buy.

‘And Wren the chemist, tall and spare,
Stood gaunt behind his counter there.
Quiet and very wise he seemed,
With skull-like face, bald head that gleamed;
Through spectacles his eyes looked kind.
He wore a pencil tucked behind
His ear. And never he mistakes
The wildest signs the doctor makes
Prescribing drugs. Brown paper, string,
He will not use for any thing,
But all in neat white parcels packs
And sticks them up with sealing-wax’