Top of Rodborough Hill towards The Butts

Coronation Road - Winter 1962-3

Coronation Road - Winter 1962-3

I lie awake, three in the morning,
Rain beating down the darkness,
Poems flitting through my head,
Tom Spicer’s blanket box at my feet,
A palpable presence,
Empty, but full of memories,
Playing conjuring tricks,
Here in the bedroom
Where Captain Forster,
Head of Rodborough School,
Once slept too -
Lying in the night,
Metal plate gently shifting in his head,
Shrapnel right there on the pillow,
His cane just on the right hand side of his brain,
“You’ll end up in the workhouse
If you carry on like that!”
He cries at miscreant boys,
Charging through the No Man’s Land
Of dream and nightmare.
He gripped his mindscape ruler,
A guidance and an order
For sealing space in straight lines
And administering Euclidean knocks
To fingers and knuckles.
The children went quiet,
The Captain started, snored, whistled,
And slept until his daily duties,
Led him once more
To his nightly No Man’s Land.

(I really felt the Captain’s presence last night. Tom used to live next door. The Captain lived in our house)

Tara on Coronation Road

Tom Spicer's Monkey Puzzle Tree - Winter 1962-3

The serrated roofs of Bisley Road
Cut the sky with a brick-red slate-grey saw,
While further down in the town,
The railway station and the Subscription Rooms
Stand like matchbox models of themselves,
A 3-D simulacrum in a toy-town panorama,
The picture framed by my sash window,
St. Lawrence Church and the cemetery.
It’s a Sunday morning in late October,
The bells ring, hammers bang, strimmers strim,
Footballers shout, congregations are out,
Gardeners dig, pay allotment rent and fines,
Washing billows on the clothes lines,
Sunday dinners waft like an Ah Bisto advert
Over garden fences, hedges and drystone walls.
Until ironing-time takes over in the afternoon:
The sun then sinks Canaletto in the west,

A full moon, silver on the Common,
Illuminates the telephone wires,
Shadows chase the wind-blown leaves,
A trench-gas mist lies in a hill-side hollow,
The cows lie down, breathing low,
Bats flit, owls cry, pubs close,
Planes blink their way across the constellations,
Another Sunday slips into a Monday,
The curtains close on imagination.

Rodborough Hill

The Turnpike