We don’t know who you take after

For it’s not after us

Yer mother and I are decent hard working people

And would you just look at you!

My first suit, tailor made, insipid charcoal grey,

And in the image of every one my father ever wore,

Seven guineas from Montagu Burton

Desecrated at the cost of half a crown, a week’s pocket money, 

The trousers, twenty inches round the bottoms

Rendered drainpipes by the retired tailor in Hyndford Street

In his rage, 

My father threatened to throw them in the fire.

Worse was to follow. Navy blue, fourteen inch bottom trousers,

Jetted pockets, single button, cut square, fingertip length

My father looked bemused as I recited this litany to the salesman

“Ach! This is what all the young men are wearing Sir”, 

I was grateful for his intercession, glad for his support,

With supplementary cutaway collar shirt and a Slim Jim tie

Complemented by my father’s ignorance of matters sartorial

My Saturday nights would reach new heights, never be the same again

Until, that was, until he saw what he’d forked out ten guineas for,

We don’t know who you take after

For it’s not after us

"Thank God for small mercies", I thought.