Category: poetry

Much to Catherine and Thomas’ disgust
Benny liked keeping a slave
They thought that abolition was just
He thought they should just behave

In fact, Benny liked keeping slaves so much
He purchased his local paper
And ran articles, polemics and such
About how he’d done slaves a favour

They’re much better clothed
And much better housed
And much better fed
The Herald espoused
Than your average English labour

He’d met Buck in the chapel
And they’d set about brewing beer
For the good, the great and the rabble
Of Bury St Edmunds, in the year

Of Our Lord Eighteen Hundred and Six
Old ale and porter too
And when The Blake’s found themselves in a fix
It was Benny who came through

And said, I’ll manage your plantations
In Monserrat and St Kitts
And many generations of Greenes
Will reap the benefits

His business grew, his chattels too
And though he found trafficking abhorrent
Keeping slaves, he’d happily pursue
As necessity, so he’d warrant

He fought the passage of The Slave Trade Act
Even quoting The Bible on occasion
And by 1833 he’d attract
Libel action, to his frustration

And so, three years later, he was off to the City
Leaving Edward to brew the beer
The compensation for freedom, more’s the pity
Going to Benny, not the slaves, it’s clear

Half a million in today’s money
Is what ol’ Benny got
While the freed slaves, not so lucky
Well, they got not a lot

And the wages on the plantations
That the freed slaves were now making
Never matched the profits or remunerations
That the Greene family were taking

And while Edward was running the brewery
Young Charles went out to St Kitts
Able, but with much tomfoolery
He left behind thirteen kids, the family now admits

All of whom were born illegitimately
As discovered by Sir Hugh Carleton Greene
Himself director of the BBC
And a great-nephew of Charlie Greene

(The novelist, Graeme Greene
Was another who carried the gene)

Now the good folk of St Kitts and Nevis
Frustrated by our government’s hesitation
Have said to Greene King, you owe us this
We demand our reparation

For the slavery days of Benny Greene
The money that he made
4.6 billion in 2019
Once off the backs of slaves

So, put down your pint of IPA
And listen to their tale
There’s more than hops, yeast and barley
In the story of your ale