Memories of a six year old

                                                                  Photographs to do with the poem.
 

 

Dear reader,

I haven't been feeling at my best lately, something to do with lockdown probably, and the poetry muse seems to have left me.  No new ideas for poems and this left me very sad.  I asked my friend Sue Johnson, herself a well-known poet, if she could give me a tip to reignite the imaginative force.  Try starting with the sentence: "I remember" she said,  and the poem published today is the result,  and I hope many more will come out of this work. If you are interested in writing poetry this formula seems to be very helpful, just write down what you remember of your early years and lots of interesting things will come up.

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The absurdity this week is about deck chairs. It is said that deck chairs could pose a danger to those who want to sit in the sun on a beach in Yorkshire.  So the council has banned them. The reason for this ban is that people could pick them up and start a fight, endangering life.  Whenever I have seen people in deck chairs or have been in one myself, far from wanting a fight, I and they have wanted a little peace and quiet and to enjoy the sunshine.  Gosh! what next? It is difficult to imagine.

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Memories of a six year old

A pale blue dress with pretty lace collar.
Threading conkers with green string.
Mrs. Mason making sponge cakes.
Eating the filling with a wooden spoon.

Silver dance slippers with gold bows.
Daddy's girlfriend pulling my hair.
Mr. Holt forgetting to pick
me up from school, again.

Yellow lino in the nursery.
Listening to Uncle Remus on
the radio at teatime when
Nanny made me eat the crusts.

I remember stroking a black-nosed
cow called Bushka,
my friend Catherine and I
playing hopscotch.

Having impetigo and not being able
to breathe in the winter.
Going down to the drawing room
filled with grown ups

where I was teased
I cried and Nanny took me back to
the nursery and gave me a chocolate bear.
I remember making a raffeta mat

which took me ages.  My mother put it in a drawer.
Once I remember her getting drunk,
stumbling upstairs,
falling in the bathroom.

I remember Daddy giving me
ten shillings and then
asking for it back the next day.
Grizzie came to stay with her guinea pigs.

I remember my sister writing
a ghostly story about the ancient
manor house, hearing footsteps
on the path at midnight.

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My mother was largely absent
from all these memories.
Nanny lived with us
she was 'my mother'.

She wrote to me at boarding school.
She was knitting a woolly hat
for my wedding day but she
died three weeks before it took place.

Nanny was my childhood security,
safety and friend and I loved her
absolutely with all my small heart.
And still do.

                                                                                       *

With very best wishes, Patricia