STANLEY HALLS, HERO AND MARTYR FOR OUR TIMES, or Lodgers can be a Confounded Nuisance

One of the cruellest trials of my life, as some of my readers will know, is the presence, on an adjoining page of this blog, of the execrable Smirk http://bishopsmirk.blogspot.com/
The poor fellow is currently on a new-age binge, and rambles on about rainbow gatherings, whatever they might be.

He also complains that he has had only one visit to his blog since its inception. It is not hard to understand why. It is in a spirit of charity, therefore, and certainly not tolerance, that I have allowed him space for his latest creative effort, A Battle Hymn to the Memory of Stanley Halls, an LGBT social worker who perished some fifteen years ago under the wheels of a Croydon tram, after an irate Irishman, whom he had unfortunately (to say the least) propositioned, knocked him into its path.

As readers consider my apologies, I trust they will understand the charitable spirit in which, without endorsement, I publish this.

The abominable Smirk says that it is written to be sung to the tune of the 'Horst Wessel Song". He apparently wants to purify this abhorrent dirge from its nazi connotations. I do not much like martial music.

As an explanatory note to non-British readers, Steel is, of course, Davis Steel, who introduced the 1967 Abortion Act, and Harriet Harmon is a prominent Labour MP and activist.

The Stanley Halls Song

In our great nation's roll-call of rememberance
Crammed full of heroines and heroes too
Above the names of Marx, Steel, Harmon, Engels,
One name shines forth - of Stanley Halls the True.

A social worker he, the best and wisest,
Lesbian, gay, bisex, transexual too.
A rainbow person, tolerant, accepting,
Who loved non-homophobes like me and you.

One rainy night, in Croydon, in November,
Our gallant Stanley, waiting for a bus,
Spoke gentle words to one who was also waiting,
(Genus: Hiberno-homophobicus).

The Irishman responded with a cruel blow,
That sent Stan flying. Sure, 'twas a grand slam!
Oh, lifeless lay our LGTB martyr
Beneath the wheels of an uncaring tram.

Our Stanley fell beside the cold bus shelter,
Close by the disused halal abbatoir.
The sodium light shone full upon his features,
Its pale effulgence purer than a star.

So sing we now our hero, Stanley, true.
O Stanley Halls! O Stanley Halls!
O be our inspiration ever new
When darkness falls and duty calls.