Verse and Worse

Paysage en Lincolnshire

2009-09-07T15:11:36+02:00

One of my favourite poems is Paysage en Lincolnshire by Paul Verlaine.

L'échelonnement des haies
Moutonne à l'infini, mer
Claire dans le brouillard clair
Qui sent bon les jeunes baies.

Des arbres et des moulins
Sont légers sur le vert tender
Où vient s’ébattre et s’étendre
L’agilité des poulains.

Dans ce vague d’un Dimanche
Voici se jouer aussi
De grandes brebis aussi
Douces que leur laine blanche

Tout à l’eure déferlait
L’onde, roulée en volutes,
De cloches comme des flûtes
Dans le ciel comme du lait.

For years I have intended to translate it, but have always failed. This is mainly because my own French is so bad, although the 'literal' translations from various sites have not helped!

Babelfish
L' spreading out of the hedges moutonne to l' infmi, clear sea in the clear fog which feels young bays good.

Trees and mills are light on the green tender where comes to play about and to extend the agility from the foal ta.

In this one Sunday old vagueness to be also played here of large ewes as soft as their white wool

all in the Eure broke the wave, rolled in volutes, of bells like flutes in the sky like milk.

Google
The timing of hedges sheep to the infinite, bright sea fog clear that smells good young berries.

Trees and mills are light green tender where just playing and extend agility foals.

In this wave of a Sunday here to play as large sheep that their soft white wool

Earlier everywhere breaking wave, rolled into scrolls, bell-like flutes in the sky as milk.

Paralink
The spacing out of hurdles is covered with white horses in the infinity, clear sea in the clear mist which smells nice the young berries.

Trees and mills are light on the green tender where comes to frolic about and to stretch the suppleness of the colts.

In this space of Sunday here is to make light also of big so soft ewes as their white wool

Everything in the Evre unfurled the wave, rolled in volutes, of bells as flutes in the sky as some milk.

Wordlingo
The spreading out of the hedges moutonne ad infinitum, clear sea in the clear fog which smells young bays good.

Trees and mills are light on the green tender where comes to play about and to extend the agility from the foalta.

In this one Sunday old vagueness to be also played here of large ewes as soft as their white wool

A few moments ago broke the wave, rolled in volutes, of bells like flutes in the sky like milk.

Today I have at last come up with a translation which almost satisfies me.

All about an infinity of sheep
Graze in the hedges’ lea
Clear to the mist-swathed sea
While lambs bleat and leap,

Their play agile and light
On the pasture’s tender green:
And proud above this scene
The trees and mills stand bright

In Sunday quietude
Soft as the ewes’ white fleece;
A scene with Sabbath peace
Eternally endued.

In scrolls of softest silk
Waves sound along the shore,
Before retreating evermore
Beneath a sky like milk.

Comments

New Washed World

2009-04-08T10:33:36+02:00

I was in the shower this morning when this hymn came to me. It's in C because I am no musician and that's what I can do most easily - don't knock it: Irving Berlin could only do C and had a piano with a gear shift for other keys (not that I'm comparing myself with the great Irving Berlin). The alignment of notes with their words was fine when I did it in MS Word, but went dodgy when blogged and I can't edit properly in the new editor.

New Washed World

e f g c’ g

Purest Voice In the new washed world

e f g c’ g

Purest Voice In the new washed world

e g f e d

Second Voice When the rain had gone

e f g c’ g

Purest Voice In the new washed world

e g f e d

Second Voice When the rain had gone

d f e – d c

Third Voice And the su-un shone

e f g c’ g

Purest Voice In the new washed world

e g f e d

Second Voice When the rain had gone

d f e – d c

Third Voice And the su-un shone

f f e – d c b, d c

Deepest Voice And the ra-aven flew away

e f g c’ g

Purest Voice In the new washed world

e g f e d

Second Voice When the rain had gone

d f e – d c

Third Voice And the su-un shone

f f e – d c b, d c

Deepest Voice And the ra-aven flew away

f f e d c

Fifth Voice But the dove returned

e f g c’ g

Purest Voice In the new washed world

e g f e d

Second Voice When the rain had gone

d f e – d c

Third Voice And the su-un shone

f f e – d c b, d c

Deepest Voice And the ra-aven flew away

f f e d c

Fifth Voice But the dove returned

f f e d c

Fifth Voice With a sprig of green

e f g c’ g

Purest Voice In the new washed world

e g f e d

Second Voice When the rain had gone

d f e – d c

Third Voice And the su-un shone

f f e – d c b, d c

Deepest Voice And the ra-aven flew away

f f e d c

Fifth Voice But the dove returned

f f e d c

Fifth Voice With a sprig of green

f f e d c d c b, c

Sixth Voice And a rainbow appeared in the sky

e f g c’ g

Purest Voice In the new washed world

e g f e d

Second Voice When the rain had gone

d f e – d c

Third Voice And the su-un shone

f f e – d c b, d c

Deepest Voice And the ra-aven flew away

f f e d c

Fifth Voice But the dove returned

f f e d c

Fifth Voice With a sprig of green

f f e d c d c b, c

Sixth Voice And a rainbow appeared in the sky

f f e d c d c b, c

All Yes, a rainbow appeared in the sky

f e d c d c b, c

Richest Voice Proclaiming God’s promise on high

f f e d c d c b, c

All f Yes, proclaiming God’s promise on high

f f e d c d c b, c

All ff Yes, proclaiming God’s promise on high

f f e d c d c b, c

All fff Yes, proclaiming God’s promise on high

shouted f e d c d c b, c

All ffff Yes, proclaiming God’s promise on high

f f e d c d g g c’

Highest Voice Yes, proclaiming God’s promise on high

Comments

Autumn

2008-09-07T16:13:50+02:00

I posted my earlier weather poem on the Weathercheck group blog, and one of the comments requested a poem about the wet autumn to come. Anything to oblige:-

Owed to Keats

Season of floods and welly bootiness!
Close season for the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load a mess
Of mud and leaves that blocks the gutters' run;
To bend and break the flowers, crops and trees,
And blow all fruit unripened to the floor;
And swell the flood; we pump the watery smells
Out of the kitchen; then start building more,
And still more, flood defences to appease,
Builders who think warm days will never cease,
And rivers ne'er o'erbrim their clammy cells.

Who hath often been inside the store
Searching whatever needful he may find
For shifting sewage off a sitting room floor,
Thy hair rough-lifted by the winnowing wind,
Or on a half-blown lilo sound asleep,
Drowsed with the work of scrubbing, while you took
Spares for the pump and soap that smells like flowers;
And sometimes with a cleaner thou dost sweep -
Steady thy laden hands across that brook
That was thine entrance hall - with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the storms of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy troubles too, -
While laden clouds make dark the dying day
And lights the flooded plains with horrid hue
And in a wailful choir thunder clouds mourn
Along the river courses, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light of evening dies;
And thunder-claps loud rumble round hilly bourn;
Boreas sings - and not with treble soft -
But loudly whistles round the garden-croft;
And gathering rain clouds weep now from the skies.

Somewhat laboured (as such parodies tend to be) with any artistic merit belonging to the original, but just about fulfilling the brief I set myself.

Comments

My Grandfather's Paintings

2008-01-16T00:02:28+01:00

My Grandfather, Arthur Richard Huston, enjoyed watercolour painting - a hobby which he practised from childhood until not long before his death. I thought it would be nice to post copies of some of those paintings on this blog.

These are four Lincolnshire views - Boston Stump, Lincoln Cathedral, the Woods at Ravendale and Saltfleetby Mill. (This last painting belongs to my cousin Shelagh in Canada)

Burgh Castle is a Roman Fort just up the road from where Aunt Ethel (my grandmother's sister) lived near Great Yarmouth, and St. Albans Abbey is where Aunt Mary (Granddad's sister) worshipped for many years.

I believe this view is Box Hill - presumably the one near Corsham, Wiltshire, where they lived at one time.

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Roadwise

2007-11-29T16:01:46+01:00

It must be nearly a quarter of a century since I observed this bit of cat behaviour. Fred, a huge, beautiful, gentle tomcat, had taken the new kitten (less than a year his junior) completely to his heart. Sadly, thirteen years later Annie forgot this early training and was run over. Fred refused food from the time of her death and died of a broken heart a few weeks later.

ROADWISE

He sat
on the kerb,
the kitten beside him,
looking left and right
at the long straight length
of the road.

A bicycle passed;
he stepped
into the deserted thoroughfare
and walked stately and unconcerned to the centre
where he sat
as calmly as before his own hearth
and glanced back to the kitten
still seated at the roadside,
across to the far side,
and back to the kitten again.

The kitten took her cue
and rose
looking warily about her
to step out into the unknown
past her companion
and on to foreign territory across the way.

Only once she had made the farther shore
did the cat rise
from his watching post
and join her,
touching noses
as if to say
“Lesson over:
that is the way
a wise cat
crosses the road.”

Comments

A Christmas Wish

2007-11-28T14:30:14+01:00

This is just a little ramble through the realms of silliness.

A Christmas Wish

Bobby looked around him at the tables of smiling faces, many slightly blurred with drink after more than three hours of the Chronicle’s Sports Review of the Year dinner. Bobby himself was still stone-cold sober having been tipped the wink in advance that he was the recipient of the evening’s final and most prestigious award. Waiters were going around with champagne, a sure sign that another toast was about to be drunk and another award given. Mentally Bobby girded his loins and waited for his name to be called.

A well-known sports journalist, himself a former footballer, came to the platform and began to speak. He started with quite a lot of guff about the Chronicle’s championship of sport in Britain, before descending to a series of commercials disguised as thanks as he mentioned a series of commercial sponsors “without whom none of this would be possible”. At last he arrived at the crux of the matter - “We are here to honour a man known both for his modesty and his quiet consistency in ‘the beautiful game’; a man who exemplifies all that is best in British sport . . .”

After three minutes of acclamation and adulation as a montage of moving pictures flitted across the screen behind him he reached Bobby’s name and gestured to him to join him on to the platform, and while Bobby skirted numerous tables, a royal Duchess made her more sedate way from a conveniently placed table where she had been sitting with the afore mentioned sponsors to the other side of the platform. They met in the middle and a leggy blonde brought on the misshapen lump of metal which constituted the Chronicle Sportsman of the Year Award and handed it to the royal personage.

She made a few formal remarks before saying that on a personal note how much her son (briefly an England Schoolboy) admired and modelled himself upon Bobby. She graciously presented the award to him and at last it was Bobby’s turn to speak.

“Tonight,” he said, “fittingly for the time of year, we have dined on turkey and Christmas pudding, and it was after just such another meal at my Gran’s on Christmas day 1979 that my footballing career took off.

“Now, you may well ask what a turkey dinner has to do with football, and I have often asked myself the same question, but I shall come to that later.

“I was born in 1966 - a great year for English football; in fact I was named Robert Geoffrey after Bobbies Moore and Charlton and Geoff Hurst. My mother even claims I took my first breath as Kenneth Wolstenholme uttered those memorable words ‘They think it’s all over: it is now.’ Before I could even walk I was kitted out in the green and yellow of Hardcastle Rovers each Saturday to accompany my parents to the match. My first shoes were miniature football boots and my first words ‘Up the Rovers!’ I was born to be a footballer, and my only surprise is that I haven’t got ten younger brothers to make up the rest of the team.

“At primary school all my dad’s hard training paid off and at the age of seven I was selected to play for the school team. The fact that there were only twenty three children - just ten of them boys - in the whole of the juniors so that we had to have Big Tracy in goal may have had something to do with this decision, but at the time I liked to believe that I had been selected on merit. At ten-and-a-half I was School Football Captain - Steve, the other boy in my year was a demon bowler and thus captain of the cricket team.

“My rude awakening came when I moved to Hardcastle Comprehensive, and did not make the under 12 team - not even the second eleven - the general consensus of opinion being that I was too weedy and slow. I did eventually get to play a few games as injuries, twelfth birthdays, homework and lack of interest overtook those deemed more talented than I, but I have to confess that I did not distinguish myself.

“My school reports at the time commend me for my enthusiasm and hard work, but the games master makes no mention of talent which seems at that stage to have been singularly lacking. By the time I was thirteen my self-esteem was at a low ebb; I had hardly had a proper game in more than a year and was reduced to lugging nets and balls about in order even to be included on the bench. Even my dad couldn’t help me as I was too old for the Cubs’ team of which he was manager, although he did appoint me assistant coach.

“And now we reach the turkey. Not the turkey I was when it came to playing football, but my Gran’s Christmas turkey. That Christmas dinner was my Christmas dinner; not only was it my turn for the wish bone, but I also got the silver sixpence in the pudding. And I wished! I wished so hard on both of them that I might be selected for the team for the next game and score a goal in every match I played.

“Now, the first match of the new term happened to coincide with a nasty fluey cold which was doing the rounds in school, so for the first time since I had advanced to the Under 14 age-group I was selected for the team. Imagine my disappointment when the position for which I was chosen turned out to be goal-keeper! How was I to score a goal from there?

“By half-time I was quite pleased with myself as I had managed to keep a clean sheet. Mind you, so had the guy at the other end, and we went into the second half at nil-nil, and it stayed that way as the rest of the players wallowed around in mud in the middle of the field, mis-passing the ball from one team to the other. It was not a good game. In the eighty-third minute a mis-kick sent the ball skittering into the outside of my side netting, and I at last had something to do - a goal kick. I thwacked that ball as hard as I could, and it went sailing over the heads of both teams and rolled straight into the opposition goal where their keeper had been standing picking his nose and was taken completely by surprise.

“We finished one-nil and I was the hero, the man of the match.

“Of course it was a fluke - everyone said so, and I didn’t disagree; but with the flu epidemic still raging I found myself selected for the team three more times - each time as a last-minute substitute for a stricken player. And I scored three more goals - twice as a mid-fielder and once as a winger.

“By the end of the season I was a regular fixture in the team, usually brought on as a substitute in the second half, and generally regarded as no better than a moderate footballer, but a tryer. Nobody was more surprised than the games-master when he added up the season’s results and found that I was the top scorer having scored a goal in every single game in which I had played.

“By the end of the next season my goal-scoring record was unblemished, and I was featured in the Hardcastle Evening Times as something of a footballing phenomenon. Various scouts came to look at me, but most - despite my goal-scoring record - remained unimpressed by my general level of play. Only the Hardcastle coach thought it worth giving me a trial, and I started to train with their youth team.

“At this time Hardcastle was languishing low in the fourth division - above the relegation zone, but not far enough for comfort. To make matters worse any player with a modicum of talent was quickly acquired by another and better team, and we youngsters had a better chance of being selected at least for the reserves if not for the first team than in most league clubs where the Chairman wasn’t working on a deliberate policy of cut your losses and run.

“At sixteen I was signed properly for a failing club - my beloved Hardcastle Rovers; and when our new chairman was elected bringing in cash and a clean sweep policy I was one of the few players kept on to take part in our meteoric five season rise from fourth to first division. I’ve seen our new stadium built. I was there at the dawn of the Premiership. I’ve been capped twenty-eight times for my country, and I’ve scored in every single one of those twenty-eight games. Not bad for a man described on They Think It’s All Over as ‘playing with all the panache of a hippopotamus in a tutu’.

“And do you know the funniest thing of all? I sort of agree. I’m not a great footballer. I’m not stylish. I’m not fast. I’m not even particularly accurate. But I’m a very lucky goal-scorer, and I put that down to my Gran’s Christmas turkey back in 1979. I don’t know whether I believe in magic, but I do know that the boost that lucky goal in January 1980 gave to my self-confidence and self-esteem as a player set me on the road to success which even my parents - football fanatics that they are - never dared to imagine.

“So, as I accept this magnificent award, I would like to thank my parents, and my Gran, and her turkey for setting me on the path which led to this wonderful day. And I should like to thank Tracy, my wife, for all her support too.

“Which leads me to one last little point. In 1988 I had just split with my then girlfriend and was spending Christmas with my Gran again. I won the wishbone and the found the silver sixpence. I wished that I might meet a girl who really cared about football and understood it the way that Big Tracy had way back at primary school. Two weeks later I was asked to open a new sports shop in Hardcastle town centre, and who should the manageress be but Big Tracy, now slim, svelte, beautiful Tracy. The rest, as they say, is history.

“But if somebody would like to send out to the kitchen and ask them to collect up all the wishbones they can find left over from this superb meal we have just finished, I should like to sort out England’s winning the next World Cup, after which I shall retire a happy, happy man.”

Comments

Wake of Disaster

2007-11-27T16:39:38+01:00

Having nothing better to do, I thought that I would post another short story. This was written a while ago before everyone had broadband and mobile phones.

Wake of Disaster

Laura could never feel that buzz of excitement which seemed to permeate through the city as Friday afternoon drew towards five o’clock. Even as a girl talk of night-clubs and dances had passed over her, and now all that Friday evening meant was an hour or so in a crowded supermarket picking up things which on other evenings would be rammed into the microwave and eaten sometime during the mad scramble that was the children’s homework and their interminable round of evening engagements.

In the past Friday had been a family evening: Donald had picked up the children from Mrs. Eldon, who minded them after school, and brought them to meet her and pack the shopping in the boot of the car, before they all went out for fish and chips or a Chinese. Now the children made their own way home and wouldn’t be seen dead out with their parents on a Friday evening, and somehow the leisurely meal had become a hurried snack in the supermarket cafeteria, rather than the romantic dinner a deux she had so fondly imagined would develop as the children flew the nest. Afterwards Don could hardly do more than dump the numerous bags in the hall before rushing off to his mates at the Coach and Horses, leaving her alone to create order out of the chaos of carriers.

Friday afternoon, on the other hand was a little oasis of calm before the frenzy of Friday evening. At one o’clock Mr. Lewis would say, as though he had never asked such a thing of her before, “Can you hold the fort all right on your own this afternoon? There’s nothing in my diary and I thought it might be as well to make an early start for the cottage this weekend.”, and Laura would reply as she did every week what a good idea it was, and that she was sure that she could manage for once. As soon as he was gone she undid the safety catches on the windows and threw them open so that the air - not truly fresh, but as fresh as any in the capital - could dispel the week’s accumulation of stale tobacco fumes as the state of the art air conditioning never could, and settled down, coat around her shoulders at this time of the year, to enjoy her sandwich and a cup of tea made from her special hoard, angling her chair to a position where she could just see the Thames through the space between the two buildings opposite.

She took no liberties; this was her designated lunch hour, usually taken with her boss who shared her son’s unaccountable liking for pot noodles with their smelly, synthetic curry sauces which could pervade the atmosphere for twenty-four hours or more, so it seemed. But on Friday she was alone with her thoughts, and the weekly tedium of compiling her shopping list. Then there was the routine tidying up both of the loose ends of the week’s work, and of the office, before leaving to bank the petty cash and sort out her own finances for the ensuing week.

Today a very minor crisis delayed her no more than ten minutes while she untangled a very junior office junior’s muddle with the computer’s stock-taking and re-ordering programme, before she had to queue marginally longer than usual at the bank. The result was that she missed her customary train by a matter of seconds, which was irritating to say the least.

Had she known what the future held her irritation would have turned to rejoicing that she was one on whom fate had smiled that day, but being blessed with no gift of precognition she swore quietly under her breath, and settled impatiently to wait the half hour before the next through train to her particular Surrey suburb. All her life Laura had been a reader and never went anywhere without the wherewithal to satisfy her addiction. Today’s fix was an improbable tale of a coal miner’s daughter at the end of the nineteenth century who in the course of four hundred pages managed to acquire (in order) a baby, a broken heart, an education, a fortune and the heir to a dukedom, all without once losing her homely northern common sense. It wasn’t the best read of Laura’s life, but it was a good deal more engrossing than her shopping list - the only available alternative. It therefore took several repetitions of the announcement over the station PA system for her to emerge from the dark streets of Victorian Newcastle to the starker realities surrounding her in the over-polished, over-crowded, over-lit station concourse.

Something terrible had happened. An accident up the line. Fire in a tunnel. Dozens - hundreds dead. Everyone knew the magnitude of the disaster which grew with every repetition, but nobody knew the details although plenty were willing to speculate.

The voice on the PA continued nasally to promise buses in the not too distant future, while uniformed officials of the rail company scurried around advising commuters on alternative and more circuitous train routes. Not for the first time Laura bemoaned her lack of a mobile and went in search of a payphone. All those on the station were occupied with ever lengthening queues building up as anxious travellers sought to reassure waiting families and friends that they were safe.

Laura waited, only to find that her home number was engaged - children ensconced on the internet for the evening - and Donald’s mobile switched off. The people behind made it impossible for her to waste time hunting for further numbers, so she made her way out of the station in search of peace and coffee.

She found both in a pub with hardly any customers. A television in the corner was tuned to the early evening news where the disaster she had so narrowly missed was unfolding minute by minute. Already ‘experts’ were pontificating about the probable cause, while ghoulish statisticians declared it to be the worst rail disaster ever. Helicopter shots showed the wreckage of one train while flames and smoke billowed from another in a tunnel. There could be no survivors of the inferno.

She tried to phone again but with the same result as before. The children she could understand, but where was Donald? He should have heard by now, and be desperate to know if she was safe, not blithely enjoying a pre-shopping drink or snack.

Laura put out her hand to dial a neighbour who might just be at home and willing to pass on a message when deep within her a voice seemed to say, “Do it. Do it now. You’ll never have such a good opportunity again. Walk out. Leave your unsatisfactory marriage and your ungrateful children. Be dead.”

Walk out. Start again. The bliss of it.

Walk out?

Start again?

At forty-three? With no pension plan? No National Insurance contributions? No passport? No driving licence? No identity? No family? No past?

Walk out?

Yes.

But not forever.

Just for one evening. Let them suffer. Let them not take her for granted for once before “Darling! You must have been so worried! I’ve been trying to get hold of you all evening. Of course I’m safe. I missed the train.”

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The Gladstone Bag

2007-11-23T17:35:56+01:00

Feeling really bored with being poorly, I found a germ of an idea for a short story wandering into my head, so I wrote it down, and this is it.

The Gladstone Bag

Ruby squatted in the trench wondering what on earth could have gone wrong. So far it had been a textbook dig: the stratification had been perfect with small finds at every level giving excellent dating material. The film team had recorded Al and The Beard as they discussed the uncovering of the hypocaust – Al asking the usual inane questions – while she had hovered in the background, trowel in hand, getting scant acknowledgement for her discovery.

And it had been her discovery. The stars of History Hunters had bagged the known main buildings of the mansio for their own, while she, like the other lesser fry, had been sent to the peripheries of the site, and been rewarded with a previously unsuspected state of the art second century bath house.

It was Ruby’s third season with History Hunters – her first as a proper (if junior) member of the team; she had started as one of the crowd of archaeology students who provided the muscle for the programme, but had been picked out by the director as much for her Kate Humble type good looks and eagerness in front of the camera as for her scholarship to play a larger part this year, and Ruby was quite happy to go along with something which changed researching for her doctorate from something akin to starving in a garret to an altogether more comfortable process. She would cheerfully wear the T-shirts, fleeces, rain capes and even the baseball cap in their garish colours with the HH of the History Hunters logo writ large upon them in just such a design and typeface as to make it almost indistinguishable at a distance from that of the well-known pizza chain which sponsored the programme. If that was the price she paid for her share of the absurd amounts of money thrown at them by the American production company she would raise no objections, especially as most of the production team came from the English co-producers and the programme received its first British airing on BBC4 which was a certain guarantee of its academic integrity.

The format was a tried and trusted one: it was presented by Al, an American stand-up comedian who had studied at Cambridge (Cambridge Cambridgeshire, not Cambridge Massachusetts) and fallen in love with Britain and British comedy clubs. He had returned to America and wasted his talent, but made his name in a long running sit-com about a group of friends in Chicago in which he had a weekly one liner as ‘man in the coffee shop’ who was always just leaving as the central characters arrived making a pithy and vaguely topical comment as he did so. He actually has a first in some branch of political history, but nobody would guess it from some of the questions he has to put to the experts so that they can explain what they are doing to the television audience.

The other mainstay of the programme is the distinguished archaeologist known the English crew as The Beard and the Americans as Kris Kringle for reasons too obvious to explain, together with his sidekicks Parthenope, the Nigella Lawson of academe, and Ken, the man of the people, who can read a prehistoric site with greater accuracy than any other man alive. There are a lot more archivists, geo-physicists, landscape historians, forensic archaeologists etc. before one reaches Ruby, but there she was week by week in the programme credits, in the background of many shots and occasionally saying a word or two on camera. In reality she probably manages to get in more actual archaeology than the principals, but she fully understands that this must never be apparent in the programme.

This week had been an especially good one. The weather had been kind and the whole site – partially excavated by an amateur some half a century earlier – had yielded some good finds, while her own corner had produced the icing on the cake with its painted plaster, mosaic floor and well-preserved hypocaust.

Having filmed ‘the moment of discovery’ with Al and The Beard, she had been left more-or-less alone to clean up a corner of the hypocaust ready for the next day’s filming. It was here that a collapsed area of floor had revealed an intriguing hiding place built into the hypocaust. After carefully recording the collapse, Ruby had lifted the debris to reveal a good second century stoneware jar seemingly all there but crushed under the pressure of nearly two millennia’s build up of soil and rubble.

It was probably at this stage that she should have summoned The Beard or at least a senior member of the production team, but it was already late afternoon and the main crew was filming the last item of the day at the far side of the site while a good half of the team had already packed up and made its collective way to the excellent pub in the near-by village. At length she managed to raise Dave on the radio who came, grumbling that he would miss the best of the food and worse than that the chance to retain his unbeaten record in pub quizzes wherever the History Hunters leviathan had rested, with his hand held camera and trusty assistant Shell.

“This had better be good,” he said.

“It should be,” Ruby replied, and then used a phrase that most archaeologists despise to allow pass their lips, “I think we may have buried treasure here.”

He squatted, grumbling more and more about fading light, late dinners and missed quiz opportunities, while Ruby carefully drew the disposition of the visible pot shards and delicately lifted them into the finds tray. Dave filmed some of the process all the time muttering about ‘it won’t be good enough to use’. Shell adjusted the light, held the mike and made a list of the shots, her recording as precise as Ruby’s own.

At last the leather bag inside the jar was ready for lifting.

“You should wait for tomorrow,” said Dave, and ordinarily Ruby would have agreed, but already there had been little rumbles of thunder in the distance which could be something or nothing by the morning; besides – if it was treasure, and she admitted that she had only really used the word to arouse Dave’s interest – security on the site was not of the best . . .

“I’ve got to finish now I’ve started,” she replied. How gently she eased fingers and trowel beneath the remains of the pot, holding the decaying leather of the bag together as much by will power as by science. How cautiously she lifted it – soil and all – into the tray. How slowly she passed it to Shell, neither of them daring to breath.

“Well, let’s have a look inside,” demanded Dave, who should have known better.

“Now it’s safe we can leave that till the morning,” she replied.

“Not bloody likely! I’ve not missed my dinner and spent all evening kneeling in a muddy field to let that crowd steal my glory. Get that light adjusted, Shell, so we can have the big reveal.”

This did to an extent fadge with Ruby’s own feelings, but she protested that The Beard should at the very least be consulted.

When at last they managed to find someone whose mobile was switched on, it seemed that the quiz had been won without Dave’s help and that a celebration was in progress, but the director was eventually separated long enough from his beer to agree to Dave’s filming the opening of the bag. An anxious voice could be heard in the background “if she can do it without damaging the . . .” and another one cut in with “Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

Permission granted, Ruby nervously released the fragile leather from the surrounding soil. There was a split along the seam and inside a smaller bag was revealed to contain a small hoard of low denomination Roman coins such as one might imagine any trader carrying with him. It was the next bag which brought forth the real shock containing as it did gold coins which looked to Ruby suspiciously like sovereigns and half-sovereigns of the reign of Queen Victoria. She looked at them in silence as she squatted in the trench wondering what on earth could have gone wrong.

Caution fled as she plunged her hand further into the bag to reveal more and more gold – broken watch chains, brooches, single cuff links, hat-pins, small salts and miniature locks - a veritable pawnbroker’s hoard of late nineteenth century scrap which could be weighed and traded anywhere and anywhen. And then there was the bag itself, damaged and decayed by the best part of two millennia underground, there was no denying the unmistakeable design of a Gladstone Bag with its Bramah lock still intact.

Comments

Politics

2007-06-04T12:09:30+02:00

I thought that it was time for another of my grandmother's epigrams, and chose this one which came to mind as a result of an email from a friend.

POLITICS

Politics, politics, my good man,
Use your sense – that is, if you can:
In important matters you haven’t a say;
This country is totally ruled by THEY.

Comments

Work in Progress

2007-05-28T11:58:42+02:00

In response to Skip's comment . . .

BLOGS

Small worlds
    opened
    to the
    wide world.

Wide world
    brought within
    the quiet
    of a room.

World wide
    conversation
    with strangers
    who are friends.

Web world
    of people
    to intrude
    upon my solitude.

Wide world
    of friends
    welcomed
    to my life.

Comments

Teaching

2007-05-28T00:19:58+02:00

Today would have been my mother's 79th birthday. These two are poems we constructed together as a teaching exercise to show children how to put together thoughts about a single subject to create something approaching poetry without using rhyme. In the years since we wrote them Blackboard has become something of an historic document.

BLACKBOARD

Not board, but canvas,
not black, but green,
dusty with yellow and white,
bounded on either side
by a wooden frame - hard,
final, and straight.
But, between,
the board itself
is a never ending strip,
an endless stream . . .
It isn’t large,
and yet for now
it fills
my entire universe.
The chalk dust clings
to my hands,
my clothes,
and my nostrils -
soft and insidious,
while the screech
of chalk on canvas
fills my ears.

Now it means captivity,
but one day,
when all the miscellaneous facts
written on its surface
have been assimilated,
it may well prove
my passport
to the future.

A ROSE

A rosebud,
red
touched with yellow,
with a long, green stem,
shining leaves,
and small purple thorns;
the petals,
soft as silk,
are furled,
not yet in bloom,
curled
small, tight and secret
about its heart;
Its fragrance is fragile
yet evocative
of all the great occasions in our lives -
birth,
congratulations,
contrition,
forgiveness,
love,
marriage,
illness,
death . . .
all embodied
in a single
flower.

Comments

Doodle

2007-05-26T22:07:07+02:00

Something worse than verse?

I was doodling on the computer and this deeply unattractive couple appeared.

I have labelled it Domestic Bliss? My grandmother would have said "Better one home ruined than two". However I feel that there is some witty caption lurking somewhere. Any ideas?

Comments

NOVEL-TEA

2007-03-05T22:17:42+01:00

It is a while since I last posted any verse. I seem to have been chatting about books and reading groups quite a lot recently both in real life and in blogland, so I thought I'd share these thoughts about novels.

NOVEL-TEA

Poems
from time immemorial
rose on a tide
of love,
wine
and despair.

Plays
likewise
staggered their drunken course
from mind of man
to stage.

But it was tea,
genteely sipped from a china cup,
which made the novel -
while in the intervals
between those cups
friends,
relatives,
and neighbours
are discussed,
considered,
and metamorphosed
into people
who never were,
but who lived and loved,
knew danger,
fought and died.

And we sit rapt,
drinking our tea,
alone,
yet in the company of those
who enter our lives as strangers
and, in the space of a few hundred pages,
become our friends,
our enemies,
our close companions,
a hundred years or more
after their creators
passed from their own shadowy lives,
leaving in their wake
lives more vivid far
than we who truly walk this earth
can know.

Comments

Life's Minor Irritations

2007-02-16T12:18:02+01:00

On my diary blog today I have sung the praises of being alone and unhassled for a few hours, so I thought that my verse blog could house a few of my verses on the small hassles of everyday life.

THE KITCHEN

The extractor fan hums
endeavouring to take
the warm smells of cooking
from the air.

The fan-oven whirrs
incessantly
as it cooks
the roast
to monotonous perfection.

The microwave beeps
reminding me
that no more need I wait for hours
for prawns to defrost.

The dishwasher
gently chugs away
the necessity of wet sleeves
and chapped hands.

On the oven a bell rings
to remind me
to move on
to the next stage
of my cooking.

While the smoke-detector
- ever the alarmist -
sounds
to let me know
that . . .
I have opened the oven door!

In another room
the vacuum cleaner raises
its cleanly voice
in opposition
to the television.

And I stop my ears
and scream
in bootless hope
of shutting out
the perpetual noise
of so much wonderful efficiency

ON THE PSYCHIC POWER OF SISTERS

I’ve a sister named Helen who
Has a monitor stuck in my loo.
She’ll ring me to say
‘I need you today’
Each time I sit down for a poo!

If she wishes her talents to hone
She chuckles and picks up the phone
To add to my list
Some shopping she’s missed
When she knows in the bath I lie prone.

One day when I’m wet and I’m bare
I will slip as I rush down the stair
And die in the hall
As I answer her call,
And she can explain why I’m there!

And finally the Thank You letter . . .

THANK YOU NOTE

I don’t like writing thank you notes -
I know that’s very rude,
And if I don’t write them properly
I could start a family feud.

I don’t like writing thank you notes -
I know that’s not polite,
Butt mi speling is atroshus,
And my handwriting is shite!

I don’t like writing thank you notes -
It’s not that I don’t care.
I like my presents - honestly!
It’s the letters I can’t bear!

I don’t like writing thank you notes -
So do forgive me please
If, instead of writing properly,
I just send you one of these.

Comments

Requiem

2007-02-11T13:03:32+01:00

Today would have been my grandmother's 112th birthday, so I thought that I would put up another of her poems. Throughout her life she kept a series of common place books in which she noted down poems, quotations and sayings which she had enjoyed. Interspersed among these are some verses labelled 'all my own work' and others which are unattributed, but which I believe to be her own. It is one of these last I have copied below. The fact that it appears in two slightly different forms called respectively Grief April 11th 1943 and Requiem seems to bear out that it was an original work in progress. I find however a slight unease in making this attribution in that, although both her mother and her brother Percy died about this time, there doesn't seem to be any particularly likely subject within the family.

It must have been for one of us, my own,
To drink this wine and eat this bitter bread.
Had not my tears upon thine face been shed,
Thy tears had fallen on mine
And thy mouth for mine made moan.

And so it comforts me - yea, not in vain -
To think of thine eternity of sleep.
To know thine eyes are tearlesss, though mine weep
And though the years be long, through mists of pain
In God's eternity, we'll meet again.

Comments

Weather

2007-02-10T14:56:25+01:00

Talking of weather, I came across this little ditty I wrote a few years ago when hot summers and cold winters were still simply that, and only a few scientists considered global warming.

I think it needs a tune.

SONG of SUMMER

In the hot, dry summer of ’eighty-nine
We talk and dream of rain;
But when the winter is here once more
We’ll wish for summer again.

As the temp’rature rises to eighty-five,
And on to ninety-three
We lie in the garden in baking heat
And complain most bitterly.

And many are regretting now
The money spent to reach
The coastline of the sunny Med
When it’s hotter on Cleethorpes beach.

In the cool wet winters of ’eighty-eight,
Of ’eighty-seven and ’six
We used to huddle by the fire
And dream of weather like this.

And in every summer since ’seventy-six
We’ve sat by the window pane
Dreaming of hot, sunny days
As we watched the pouring rain.

So, here’s to the British Character -
That sterling bulldog breed -
Who knows that, whatever the weather is like,
It’s wrong - and we’re all agreed.

Comments

Wartime

2007-02-09T12:50:26+01:00

Sixty-five years ago today soap was put on ration. My grandmother saw fit to commemorate this event in verse.

February 1942

The World War has deprived me
                 - not of Hope;
That springs eternal
                - so the poets write -
But what is more important far
                  - of soap,
Now there is something for which I will fight!

And since the weather is so cold, I thought that I would add another of her wartime verses.

December 1941

Ye Mariners of England
That sail upon the seas
Think kindly of the Home Guard:
They also stand - and freeze.

Comments

THE MENTOR

2007-02-06T20:52:24+01:00

Tomorrow it is three months since my lovely Cally died aged 18. This was written when she was ten and newly the senior cat. The kitten is Albert. I haven't got a digital photo of the two of them in the garden so here is Cally on the steps and Albert being kittenish with Jessica's hair.

THE MENTOR

I was told that the cat is a solitary hunter

Yet, here
in perfect harmony
flanking their prey
they advance together,
couchant,
close to the ground.

The bird flies.

But even now
they do not break
in disarray
to follow a solitary course.
The small cat,
taking his cue from the larger,
still crouches
watching his Mentor’s every move.
And still she sits
furtive
in the lea of the steps.
Waiting.

And the kitten sits too.
Only the occasional twitch
of his black, pointed ears
revealing his whereabouts
to the wary birds
on the lawn above,
while he watches
not them,
but her.

Until slowly she stretches,
arches her back,
and moves away -
a signal that the lesson
is over.

Comments

CREATION / DESTRUCTION

2007-02-03T00:23:23+01:00

Today Global Warming is once more in the news. When I was younger we believed mankind's destruction of the world would be more deliberate. I have never been certain whether this poem is actually quite good or just self-consciously naive.

CREATION / DESTRUCTION

One day I wrote a poem.
I read it through
       and saw that it was good.
I read it to my friends
       (I liked it and wanted to share it.)
Sometimes I altered a word
       or added a verse:
I thought to improve it.

Then
       one day
       in a fit of temper
       my brother
       tore it up
       and threw it away.

One day God made the world.
He looked it over
       and saw that it was good.
He gave it to mankind
       (He liked it and wanted to share it.)
Sometimes He altered a coastline
       or added a species:
He thought to improve it.

Then
       one day
       in a fit of temper
       my brother
       blew it up
       and threw it away.

Comments

SCHOOLDAYS

2007-01-30T21:45:13+01:00

Last night at Swallow Bookworms we were discussing Lynn Truss'* Eats Shoots and Leaves which of course reminded us of English lessons at school. Four of us (all the product of girls' grammar schools) admitted to loving English grammar lessons, and two of us fell to reminiscing about Reg Waite. Now I will not say that he was the most exciting English teacher in the history of education, but he was almost certainly both the most thorough and the most courtly. I remember right at the beginning of the autumn term of my third year (now called year 9) one of the girls rushed to the classroom door to open it for Mr. Waite, and he told us that now we were no longer children, but young ladies he would hold the door for us. Imagine the boost that gave to a class of lumpy, spotty 13 year olds. When, five years later, the school closed and its buildings metamorphosed into the lower school of a mixed comprehensive, he retired to the part-time occupation of playing the organ at the crematorium.

Anyway, this long introduction brings me to today's poem which I wrote when I was in the sixth form and Mr. Waite told us to write a classical sonnet for our homework. Although a very nice man, Mr. Waite was not a teacher to give high marks, but he gave me ten out of ten for this one! I later entered it in a competition and won joint first prize with it.

TO A SCHOOLMASTER
On the problem of having to write poetry to order

Sir, when thou craved’st a sonnet from my pen
You knew not what you asked; for night by night
I have lain sleepless, yearning for the light
Of inspiration; but it came not then.
Yet, in the middle of assembly when
My wand’ring fancy strayed, an idea bright!
But when, alas, I sat me down to write
It fled from me and would not come again.

I waited for that vision to return;
The weeks rolled by, the end of term drew near.
My friends all wrote their poems; I alone
No single line of feeble verse could turn.
There’s nothing left for me to do I fear
But copy one of Milton’s least well known.

I'm afraid that the rather discreditable truth is that, far from being able to turn no single line of feeble verse, I wrote the final version of several of the sonnets submitted by other girls who had ideas but couldn't get the hang of the form. No doubt they had helped me out with Latin or French homework in the past.

While on the subject of school - and back with the doggerel - here is another prize winner (a second place, I think) from the same year. I was a bit premature here because the school didn't actually close until 1973.

ON THE DEMISE OF THE
CLEETHORPES GIRLS GRAMMAR SCHOOL
1972

Now fifty years ago our school
Was a feminine society
Which sought young ladies to instil
With standards of propriety,

Madge, and Dot, and Marjorie came
Arrayed in panama hats and serge,
And lady graduates tutored them
To conquer each unseemly urge.

'No walking on the sacred quad!'
These tweed clad spinsters sternly taught,
'Don't lounge! No eating in the street!
Harbour a fond respect for sport!

The years rolled by, but little changed
Till war's transfiguring hand once more
Swept that close little world away:
Nothing could ever be as before,

Doreen, Shirley, Joyce, and Jean
Construed and parsed and learned by day;
But evening found them - dressed to kill -
Dancing the wartime night away,

A year of innovation strange -
A man to teach the sixth-form sees,
Though, since he's curate of Old Clee,
A decent cassock hides his knees,

Eleven plus and G.C.E.
Replace the old examinations,
No longer will the pupils be
Selected from the upper stations,

The years roll on: more pupils come,
And more until the black day when
They build huts on the sacred quad
And - heavens! - half the staff are men!

But still time's restless hand's at work
On Sharon, Karen, and Michelle:
They must go comprehensive now
And to the old school say farewell.

No sentiment! In seventy-two
We can't indulge in sad regret,
But we look warmly back on you,
You gave us much. We won't forget!

*"Truss'" - I omit the third s despite the lady's own views in in deference to what we were taught by Mr. Waite.

Comments

Definitely Doggerel

2007-01-29T19:22:32+01:00

After that last discussion, I thought that I would put in one that is doggerel by anybody's standards and by any definition with its tortured rhymes and lumpy rhythm. It was written nearly eleven years ago. I had no idea that it had survived as it is about as far from deathless verse as you can get. It was, of course, written for that final refuge of truly terrible verse - the birthday card. And if you think this is bad, you should see the one I sent his parents last December for their Pearl Wedding Anniversary.

SOME DOGGEREL FOR MY GODSON ON HIS 18th BIRTHDAY

When he was small
‘Twas no trouble at all
To find him a present he wanted
But now large and hairy
(No delicate fairy)
He doesn't look good in a bonnet

For rabbits named Pete
And small drums to beat,
He's lost all his early desire,
And he no longer cares
For the sweet teddy bears
He liked when his voice was much higher.

A frieze on the wall,
Or a red, bouncy ball
Were once a delight and a pleasure.
But, now he's so old
I've problems untold
In finding him something to treasure.

For Christmas, I know,
I can give him some dough
To spend on whatever he wants;
But today he's eighteen,
And you'll see what I mean
When I say that he'll be that just once!

At his strange code of dress
I only can guess,
And his music just leaves me confused;
For not knowing what's what
In a teenage night-spot
I stand guilty, I fear, as accused.

A commemorative mug?
A well polished jug?
A scroll of his family name?
Some hand-engraved glass?
No, for him (and his lass)
I'll buy a nice photograph frame!

(By the way, for anyone following my other properly bloggy blog, the lass in the last verse is not the lovely Kris whom he has just married, but the childhood sweetheart who e-mailed him a 'Dear John' when he was just about to sit his finals.)

Comments

THE SENSES

2007-01-15T19:49:03+01:00

This was written by my late mother at a guess between 1957 and 1962 when we lived on the seafront, although both before and after the family homes from 1935 to 1986 were less than 5 minutes from the beach. Unlike most of my verses this has genuine poetic aspirations although the clearest literary inspiration seems to me to come from Thornton Wilder's play "Our Town".

THE SENSES

I have loved many scents and sounds and sights -
Warm winds, white waves bright days and starry nights;
Spring rain upon my face, and autumn fires;
Waking from sleep to blackbirds’ morning choirs;
Coffee fresh ground, and new baked bread;
A pillow made of down beneath my head;
Warm animals with coats of healthy sheen
Alive beneath my hand, and the sharp clean
And lovely lines of horses moving free beneath the sky
On the wide sandy shore, where just the cry
Of seabirds breaks the silence, and the sea
Far off murmurs its ancient mystery.

Comments

PRAYER FOR THE LATE LISSA

2007-01-15T00:47:28+01:00

I'm starting this blog with a selection of some of my favourites written over the years.

PRAYER FOR THE LATE LISSA

Oh, Lord,
before they write the late before my name
let me for once be early.

Let me break the tyranny of generations
(maternal, not paternal)
and arrive completely and correctly clothed,
in breath,
with the agenda,
gift, or any other essential requisite intact,
some minutes before the event

Let me learn
that ten miles cannot be covered in ten minutes,
at least not by a reasonable person
-and I am a reasonable person -
on Lincolnshire roads.

Let me learn
that a Church Service begins before - not after -
the first hymn.

Let me learn
that a meeting starts with apologies and minutes,
and not with A.O.B.

Let me learn
that friends
- however late themselves -
expect some semblance of punctuality.

Let me learn
that it is possible
to write a reply
within six months of receiving a letter,
and that birthday cards and presents
may be bought and sent
some days in advance.

Oh, Lord,
before they write 'late' before my name
let me for once be early.

Unless, of course, that is,
I am already late for my own funeral . . .
in which case, let me be much later!

Comments

HOMEWORK

2007-01-15T00:40:10+01:00

For some reason I have rather a lot of friends and relatives with large families of between four and eight children: this poem is dedicated to them. I note that it is already out of date as I've been told that loo rolls are no longer in favour for juvenile craft for fear of faecal contamination.

HOMEWORK

I'm sorry I can't come out,
but I've got my homework to do.

From half-past three I've reading
'Ben and Lad' are old friends now,
still LOOK-ing
page after page,
and still incapable of having an adventure
without repeating themselves ad infinitum.
And still too dull, surely,
to engage anyone's attention -
certainly not ours.

I'm sorry I can't come out,
but I've got my homework to do.

I have to transfer the cornflakes
into a Tupperware box,
and roll the remaining loo-paper
(upstairs and down)
onto the bare spindle,
in order to release
two cardboard tubes and a box
(a mediaeval gatehouse, I mean)
for tomorrow morning.

l'm sorry I can't come out,
but I've got my homework to do.

I have to prepare a time-line -
"Of history?" I ask
"Or your life?"
"Yours," she replies;
"Do you remember the war?"
"I'm too young."
"Are you sure?"
Does she do it on purpose?
And is it true that my life
consists of nothing of interest to her
but the dates on which my pets have died?
Have I achieved nothing?

I'm sorry I can't come out,
but I've got my homework to do.

The Middle Cs march on,
And Mary's Lamb's fleece is eventually
as white as snow.
But we take our time,
kick the piano,
slam down the lid
(just missing our fingers),
hide under the stool,
and insist that musical compliance
is worth at least a pack of smarties.

I'm sorry I can't come out,
but I’ve got my homework to do

Tables in the bath - eight times tonight,
and a test in the morning.
Is now the time to admit
that I suffer from a firm conviction
that four times eight is thirty-six,
and always have?
I'll be on firmer ground tomorrow
when it's spelling.

I'm sorry I can't come out,
but I've got my homework to do.

A Polka makes its funereal way
from the sitting room
slowly upstairs.
"Faster!” I urge, and 'B-flat, you fool!"
But the pace remains leaden
and the B natural.

I'm sorry I can't come out,
but I've got my homework to do.

An essay now on what happens in the first act
of Shakespeare's 'Macbeth'
Nothing much, I gather, as
- head down on table -
three short, lame sentences
limp from his pen.
"You can't stop there;
it isn't finished."
"I can, and it is!"
Half-an-hour,
three slammed doors,
two "Everybody hates me!,
and one 'For god's sake, go to bed!' later
there's just one option left . . .
and, pen clasped awkwardly,
(setting up a dangerous precedent)
I do my best to imitate his vile scrawl
and save him from his just desserts

I'm sorry I can't come out,
but I've got my homework to do

Great! Latin! My confidence at a low ebb,
dictionary to hand,
I settle down
to conjugate the nouns
and decline the verbs
knowing full well that -
great though the confidence placed in me may be -
at so great a remove
I am more of a liability
than an asset.

I'm sorry I can't come out,
but I've got my homework to do.

From the landing overhead
come the dreaded words,
"Don't forget, it's cookery in the morning.
The list's in my bag."
But where do I find
150 grammes of grated cheese
at this time of night?
Still less a cauliflower!
And what's 150 grammes
in real money anyway?
Could I write to the school that
we' re kosher
and vegan,
on a gluten-free
low-fat diet
without sugar
All of us!
So, please, could we be excused cookery
and be allowed to sit
quietly in the library
doing our prep instead?

I'm sorry I can't come out,
but I've got my homework to do.

Half-past-ten: I'm exhausted,
And there's pack-ups still to make!
Simple, but shameful bread and jam for one,
One meat on white bread,
One salad on brown (no spread, even lite),
And one peanut butter
with ketchup and spam
because this week it's cool
and what all his friends are eating!
Just the rabbits to feed,
then a nice cup of tea,
and bed.

I'm sorry I couldn't come out,
but I had my homework to do.

Ask again in about fifteen years.

Comments

MILLENNIUM BUG

2007-01-15T00:31:33+01:00

You can guess when I wrote this. For some reason it needs reading with a Liverpool accent. I don't know why - Liverpool is a lovely place, but it's not my place.

MILLENNIUM BUG

I’ve caught a Millennium Bug
Me clock don’t work:
I think it’s 1900
and I can’t use me calculator.
Mind you -
since I’m not born -
I can’t go to school neither.
It’s great!

I’ve caught a Millennium Bug
It’s a bit of a bugger:
I think it’s 1900
and I can’t watch the T.V.
or the Video.
I’m bored!
I’ll have to read a book!

I’ve joined the library;
It’s full of books!
I’ve read three this week!
I never done that before!
It’s great -
this Millennium Bug!

Comments

GENERATION GAP

2007-01-15T00:26:17+01:00

I wrote this nearly forty years ago as you can see from the date. In an English lesson we were set the task of doing some creative writing which had to begin with the words "Look, Mum . . ." and be about the generation gap. As far as I am concerned it is entirely artificial: I never felt that there was a generation gap, my parents were always 'mummy and daddy' never 'mum and dad', I have never drunk coke, my mother never darned socks (my father occasionally darns his own), and at 14 I had never stayed out later than buying chips on the way home from Guides . . . nonetheless it got me an A+ then, and won a poetry competition later that year. In 1999 I dusted it off for a pupil to recite as part of a group about growing up and added a new verse.

GENERATION GAP - 1969

Look, Mum, it wasn't really late;
We just drank coke, and sat, and talked,
So don't get worked up in a state;
The bus had gone, and so we walked.
Then on the way home we had some fun,
And didn't get home till half-past one.
But don't tell Dad!

Look, Mum,,I can't wear these again!
These dresses just don't make the scene;
If you can't see, I can't explain
That minis now are really keen!
These old things are beyond the pale;
Just send them to a jumble sale.
But don't tell Dad!

Look, Mum, I can' t ask friends in here,
'Cos Dad’ll goggle at the box,
And he will only sit and stare
While you just darn his endless socks.
At home I simply can't be me;
Outside I feel so wild and free.
                          But don't tell Dad!

Look, Mum, we'd get on quite all right;
Sue's found a smashing flat for four,
We won't smoke pot or drink all night,
And we won' t often break the law.
There's really nothing more to say;
I'll pack my things and get away
                         And you'll tell Dad!

1999 THE NEXT GENERATION - 30 years later

Look, Mum, I'll just stay in bed;
There's nothing here for me to do,
I don't care what my teacher said:
People are many, jobs, are few.
I won't get on my bike today;
Just face it, Mum, I'm here to stay:
                           Unlike my Dad!

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MY NEW BIKE

2007-01-15T00:05:54+01:00

This is based on a joke my grandmother used to tell.

MY NEW BIKE

I'm on my brand new bike!
I’m riding round the square!
I'm peddling very fast
And the wind is in my hair
They said I wouldn’t manage
But - as to wheels bred -
I steer the bike with natural ease
Like this . . . with my arms spread!

“LOOK, MUM! NO HANDS!”

I' m the fastest thing on wheels,
And when I get the chance
I shall represent my country
And win the Tour de France!
I shall wear that yellow jersey -
The pack I'll lead with pride.
My feet are off the pedals now
As down the hill I glide.

“LOOK, MUM! NO FEET!”

My bike’s got twenty gears or more -
I’ll use them every one!
I'm running through them quickly . . .
The chain’s' come off! Oh, Bum!
I'll have to slam the brakes on -
I know they'll stop me dead.
The world goes topsy-turvey!
The ground’s beneath my head!

“LOOK, MUM! NO TEETH!”

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FIVE IMAGES OF CHRISTMAS

2007-01-14T23:59:50+01:00

This is one of my serious poems - they are few and far between. I submitted it under an assumed name to be included in a programme of Christmas poems and music, and it was selected.

FIVE IMAGES OF CHRISTMAS

An image of a child
in a story
- so old it is written in our innermost being
- so beautiful it confounds our senses:
a child
surrounded
by shepherds summoned from the hills,
kings kneeling in the dusty straw,
and angels quiring in the sky above:
a tale so strange
it challenges our unbelief.

An image in a silver bauble
reflecting in its convex sides
a burst of gaiety -
extravagance, parties and laughter,
un-needed presents
and silly games -
flowering in the darkness of mid-winter -
absurd,
commercial,
self-indulgent,
but necessary.

An image of a family -
not ideal, not always loving, kind,
but together:
home again for this brief interlude
bearing gifts,
remembering things past:
bringing the best of themselves
to this ritual feast.

An image of a crowded church.
packed with those who come here every week,
outnumbered far by those who seldom come,
yet come today:
And those who
even today
remain at home
have sentimental cards about the house
of little churches
buried in silver snow,
and need to know
someone is praying there.

An image of a star
reminding us
that Christ
is not born once a year
in a stable,
to be remembered in a feast,
in family love
and prayer:
but is born
in every second
of every day
in the hearts of those
who follow the star.

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CHRISTMAS LETTER

2007-01-14T23:29:59+01:00

This is a poem I wrote some years ago about those round robin Christmas letters we all receive and many of us write: many of them are very interesting and a good way of catching up with non-blogging friends and relatives. Some - like this - are quite ridiculously self-congratulatory.

CHRISTMAS LETTER

Dear friend, or relation or colleague,
What a long time since all last year's news;
I've been meaning to write to you properly,
But - for now - have my word processed views:

We’re all of us troubled with flu here,
(Don't worry - it's under control),
We were ill in the run up to Christmas,
And time has run out on the whole:

I'm behind with my Christmas shopping,
(That’s why I've bought everyone socks)
The tree is still growing in the forest,
And the baubles remain in the box.

The house is quite full at the moment
- Five children, eight cats and three dogs -
But Britta is great with the kiddies,
And no-one can clean like Ma Bloggs.

The children are all faring nicely
-That's Amy and Sam and Louise -
We'd be millionaires by next summer
If it weren’t for those dreadful school fees!

The cousins are all doing well now
- Ph.D., B.Litt., and M.A. -
While Ted is delivering pizzas,
But he's studying hard in the day.

Young Sally has moved in with Gareth,
And Benji's still living with Anne;
Polly is tramping to Thailand,
And Luke's teaching Maths in Japan.

Young Johnny has changed his religion
- He believes in the ‘Plasma Supreme’ -
He says he still more or less Christian
So things may not be as bad as they seem!

You'll be wanting to know this year’s tally
Of relations new born and dead:
Well, Katy has had her third baby,
And next year she hopes to get wed.

And Caroline, Charlotte and Alice
Have each added one to the score;
But Arnold and Hubert and Enid
- Alas! and Alack! - are no more.

Jim and Eileen came home from Australia,
And Brian popped over from France,
Then Elsa flew in from Mombassa . . .
Our holiday? - We had no chance!

But I've been giving seminars world-wide
- In Sidney, Cape Town and L.A. -
And my study. of Post Modern Culture
Will be published the third week in May.

We're running the village quite nicely
(Our endeavours are quite plain to see)
At the Hall, and the Church, and the Sports Field,
The Youth Club and the P.C.

In the wider world our interests
Are many and manifold
The Arts Club, the Choir and Charity Fund
Without us would certainly fold.

We did a production of 'Hamlet'
- Just eight of us down at the Hall -
We think we’re far better than Stratford,
And the National’s no rival at all!

(I’m going to drop just one name now
- The one famous person I know
But I'm doing it very discreetly -
Just the Christian name - just for show.)

Our candidate won the election
- With our help, he just had to win -
We’re feeling quite proud of our efforts,
Although the Wrong Party got in.

Well, I'll close now with just this reminder:
We'll all be at home New Year’s Day,
So, if you're around in the region
We hope that a visit you'll pay.

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