Petts Wood oaks
supplied the strakes
for many a ship back
in the days of Samuel Pepys.

William Willett rode
these woods at dawn and
proposed it would be good
to wind back clocks, his daylight saving plan.

There was one oak
stripped bare and hollowed
we children called the
Petts Wood crocodile.

Upon its cracked and
gnarled back we lept
parried and attacked
pirates breaking from waves of fern.

When we boys were driven off
I crept deep inside the rotten log
and with my bellowed 'tick' and 'tock'
put a fear up Captain Hook.