I must have said the words a hundred times that night
close to mother’s ear , in hushed voice with shushes,
‘sleep mam, sleep,
try to find your sleep’.
to an ear that had heard my first ever cry,
and the first sounds uttered by three others.
A shell that had heard the lap or crash of many sea tides.
pinned back for orders in service as a Wren.
A vessel generously lent, often bent,
but thrilled by a husband’s laughter.
An organ that balanced her true singing voice
given in celebratory song for her belief,
that absorbed a bible and Salvationist’s songbook.
Open to aid all others, never deaf to need
this was now the phone for my repeating
‘mam,
try to find your sleep’.
Archive for the ‘family’ Category
. . . find your sleep
Posted: December 28, 2016 in family, Health and wellness, Intimacy, lost, love, People, Poems, portraitsTags: Family, Life, Poetry, relationships
Old & New
Posted: March 11, 2013 in Agriculture, family, Farming, People, Photographs, Ploughing, TravelTags: Clydesdales, Farming, Horses, Ploughing, scotland, Tractors
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…this theme keeps finding my camera, wherever I look. Invited to the Ayrshire Ploughing Association’s ploughing competition, by the friend of a relative I was visiting, I witnessed horses actually ploughing a field and a computerised cabin of a tractor in action, trying to do the same thing.
As far as I could gather four pegs define the width and the length of the strip to have its soil turned, (you will have to excuse me farmers, I don’t have the jargon or language that grows from this specialist work). Then about ten furrows are ploughed, as straight as possible of course, at one end of the strip or rectangle of land. After completing these the ploughman has then to go to the other end of 
the strip and work his way back with straight even furrows until they match perfectly those at the starting end. (I have tilted the photos deliberately as this would be the ploughman’s view, with one wheel in the furrow).
It looked as if the horses had it a bit easier but it was obvious from the vintage tractors that they were in a class of their own and to be admired as still working at what I imagine was one of the jobs they were bred for.
Then, there they were, standing just right for me to race away to get a shot under the leaden skies of Scotland. As it turned out I was in the warmest place in the UK for some reason? I spent February avoiding sunburn in 40-50 degree temperatures while it snowed in southern England. I had another great birthday break exploring the lowland quarries, farms, stately homes and castles of Scotland on the west coast border just below Glasgow, thanks to my dear cousins and their friends and four Clydesdale horses.
dwk
Alone in spirit, perhaps?
Posted: August 28, 2012 in family, Health and wellness, Neighbours, People, Poems, relationshipsTags: children, conditioning, isolation
….from the nursery across the street,
I hear the sounds of rushing feet
and gleeful, over-shoulder goodbyes,
not even contact with mother’s eyes.
Alone all day to play with friends
while mother and father
fight to find ends,
let alone make them meet!
To keep ‘baby’ healthy
and buy large eye gifts,
generation separating things
that parental imagination
never thought could exist.Joy shrieking, learn wandering,
through their day of play,
once a neighbour complained
that “that such a facility should
not be in a residential space..
(as statisticians working from home),
..could not bear the noise of this place”.
He moved…..
They, happily play on, unaware
as should be.But generation gaps are now canyons.
Most under 40’s have shared this absence,
left alone to navigate, without a sail
just a pilot, those needed departed?
Is detachment of young spirit
a subtle conditioning through
necessary gregarious engagement,
later rejected?
A displaced absorption from ’parent’s knee’,
substituting language, mannerism or even physicality
for which only familiar DNA has the key?Locked away forever,
inhibited by prevailing culture
that belongs to the consuming mass,
instead of the sweet intimacy of the nest
or grandma’s best?
Then there! A green bud
whose spirit shouts though lips sealed,
flashing against society’s soil
that the unselfish, the unspoilt
do persist.
dwk
memory drawing
Posted: July 3, 2012 in family, People, RamblingsTags: art, Drawing, Holidays, Memory
….one of our bloggers that I follow, mentioned how drawing had “al
ways been a part of her life”, showing us examples. When reading this and seeing her pictures I looked up from my key-board at this drawing above the desk. The only of my drawings that I have framed, I must urgently add because the frame was in need of employment more than anything else. No ‘tis true ! But the excuse or reason for my scribbling being on the wall was, truthfully, the clear memories it reflected of a family Christmas Holiday. My brother had returned from France and brought his delightful partner with him. To visit her potential mother-in-law. Both decided Noel could not be complete without champagne and other delicious french holiday food. Thus the metal caps which with the assistance of wire prevent foaming explosions during transport or intended bubble explosions over Grand Prix victors. The identification of the plant? I apologise that is not my corner of the garden. I know people who can tell you the Latin name assigned to catalogue nature, maybe I should ask them? This image does not show how soft lead pencils can do justice to the plants texture. We had to pick up my nephew after his last day at school before the Christmas break and my sister suggested I come with her as he may be pleased to see his uncle. So this must have been about 6 or 7 years ago as he is now a classic suffering teenager. But still much loved despite his distance. Geography cannot inhibit love. Waiting outside the school the bushes looked like white sea foam because of a fluffy seed distribution system. The breeze was beginning to create clouds of this. It must have been a late Autumn as this was December? I plucked one of the sprigs and it ended up on coffee table with the Moet cap and after drawing with nephew, this simply started as a doodle, which became more extended as mother’s television became more boring. There was no magnum bottle,unfortunately, I just drew different scales of the same cap and there was some sort of relationship with the fluffy sprig of foam that somehow fitted, despite the metallic hardness against the natural softness. It brings back so much detail I will not bore you any further other than to say that I have been drawing since child, Art Ordinary and Advanced-Level at school, Art college and a bachelor of arts degree. My brother said of the drawing, at the time “its OK”! Well, he IS an architect! I once had a cartoon on my office wall of two children drawing. One is saying to the other “everybody knows if you can’t draw you can still be a graphic designer”.
dwk
Grandfather
Posted: May 25, 2012 in Education, family, Health and wellness, People, personalities, Photographs, TravelTags: Family, Grandparents, knowledge, Workplace
Apprenticed as a fireman in an open steam train cabin, my grandad moved up to engineer when considered “mature” enough by his superiors who had barely set foot in a steam-engine’s cabin. He spent his working life stoking or driving these grey beasts. Then came the day to drive the new Queen Elizabeth.
Among his peers he was considered as the most experienced engineman and therefore, the safest, but some bureaucrat decided a younger man would logically, be a safer engine-driver for the young Queen returning to London from Manchester. After he left his country’s mainlines for the sidings, my grandmother once told me “it broke his heart you know”. After so many years of service given and respect gained? A certificate of long service and a photograph of his favourite engine? He retired from the Salford Railyard that served the Old Trafford Industrial Estate, supported the railwaymen’s football team, met friends at the Union Club and loved his garden.
As a twelve year old, I remember he showed me how to make firelighters from newspaper, as he had done on so many mornings to start the fire beneath the steam engine’s boiler, which I thought was wonderful! I, now too, could start fires, and loved helping him clean the home hearth, bring in the coal and set the fire. Running to open the front door for airflow, and learning how to balance the coal shovel in front of the fireplace on the hearth rail. Covering the whole fireplace with a sheet of newspaper when the flames caught, taking it away carefully when the coal fire roared.
Just an elderly man with his grandson both enjoying the passing of knowledge of the most fundamental kind – how to make fire.
dwk
The photograph is of Newcastle-upon Tyne Station in the 1960’s by Eric de Mare and is in the RIBA Collection.
......over the edge 