Written for Lisa/Li’s dVerse Q242 prompt — a 44‑word quadrille using hunger. It sparked a memory of trudging home late across Hungerford Bridge with my two little boys after visiting their cousins outside London.
Hungerford Bridge
on
old Hungerford Bridge
we
cross
the river
going home
later than intended
I shiver
hungry
stomachs rumble
weary small sons
grumble
I’m mean
but
on the other side
there’s a sweet
vending machine
coin in the slot
three creme eggs
save our lives
—Lesley Scoble, February 2026
Audio Narration — Hungerford Bridge
Narrated by me.
NOTES
In the poem I call the bridge the old Hungerford Bridge—but the footbridge we crossed that night (the Golden Jubilee Bridge) was actually built in 2002, so it’s pretty new. (You can’t trust everything you read in a poem!) When my sons were in Primary School, they painted celebratory pennants to fly on this bridge. Proud mum took some fantastic photos with my old Pentax film camera, and I am now, as we speak, frantically hunting for the prints. If I haven’t posted them, it means I’m still looking.
The original suspension footbridge designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel was completed in the mid‑19th century, so not especially ancient either. The current railway bridge, which runs alongside the Golden Jubilee footbridge, replaced Brunel’s original structure in 1864.
A little history behind the vending machine
Heron of Alexandria, a 1st‑century engineer working in Roman‑era Egypt, created what’s widely considered the earliest vending machine. Installed in temples, it dispensed holy water: a coin dropped into a slot landed on a small pan, its weight tipped a lever, and a valve opened just long enough to release a measured trickle. When the coin slid off, the valve closed again. Ingenious in its simplicity, it offered a remarkably modern idea — insert coin, receive a controlled offering.
THANK YOU
Thank you, Lisa/Li, for inspiring me to write my quadrille and for sparking the memory of that walk across Hungerford Bridge.
LesleyScoble.com 
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