A Charlbury Voice. The Mind Cupboard

 Dear Reader,

The poem today is about a very different Charlbury, the small market town that I live in.  My next door neighbour for many years was Vic Brackenbury, born and bred in the town. He wasn't at all  happy about the ways of "new comers"; they spoilt the town he said, and many of the traditional shops closed.  I wrote this poem many years ago but I think he would be shocked at the changes he could see today.  These changes have taken place in villages and small market town everywhere in England, and not for the better I would say.  Still I am old and don't like change.  I like things as they were when I came here twenty years ago.

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Well the sun shone here all yesterday.  I couldn't believe it.  Lots of garden birds hopped about and the robin stayed near the table where we were sitting most of the day. Gosh it makes such a difference to your mood when sunlight filters down through the trees and the birds make music.  

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I thought this was interesting.  

Red squirrels may have passed leprosy onto humans in medieval times according to a new study co-authored by academics from the University of Winchester.  The leprosy strain recovered from the medieval red squirrel bones is closer to the human stains than it is to those in  modern rodents says the new study.  Transmission may have taken place when furriers were handling the skins of animals.  Squirrel fur was often used to line and trim clothing in the medieval period.  The UK"s red squirrel population (around 160,000) is now far smaller than it would have been in England in the 10th and 11th centuries.                                                                                                                                               

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From Francis Kilvert  May 24th  1874 in Wiltshire

'.....banks and hedges brilliant with pink campion .....As I came home the western heavens were jewelled with pure bright sparkling lights of grey silver and pale gold, and overhead a sublime mackerel sky of white and blue in its distant fleecy beauty gave me a more intense and grand sense of infinity and illimitable than I ever remember to have had before.'

 

From Gilbert White  May 28th  1793 in Hampshire

'My weeding-woman swept up on the grass-plot a bushel basket of blossoms from the white apple tree: and yet that tree seems still covered with bloom.'

 

From Samuel Pepys  May 29th  1662 in Surrey

'With my wife and the two maids and the boy took boat and to Vauxhall, where I had not been a great while.   To the old Spring Garden, and there walked long, and the wenches gathered pinks.'

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A Charlbury Voice

 

“Things were different then,” the old chap said,

“Some born and died in the same old bed.

Saddlers, glove makers, and the railroad

gave men jobs; and kept them proud.

Yes, men kept guns but shot to eat,

the poorer families had little other meat.

People helped each other through their lives,

with babies safely born to knowing wives.

Walking through the town you talked to everyone,

no privacy, of course, but things got done.

 

Now I know or speak to few people here,

and fewer people talk to me, or care,

I hear the railway is just a single track,

and a wilderness overtaking round the back.

Once men worked there selling coal,

later with its disuse, forced on the dole.

 

Then, useful things were sold in shops.

The ironmonger sold screws, pins, string and mops,

darning needles, hammers, dusters, candles, brown teapots,

measures, light bulbs, garden hoses, children's cots.

 

On summer evenings children ran down the southern road,

and played and picnicked by the Evenlode.

In those days we wandered, happy, daring, free -

well, nothing now is as it used to be.

Modern life is twisted, the proper order is unsure,

people not content with little, ever wanting more.

 

There is danger everywhere, from cars and caravans,

litter in the street, discarded bottles, empty cans.

The evening peace with rooks my music overhead,

silenced;  a cacophony of noise instead

from pubs, which need the trade, and so

by popular demand silence had to go.

 

Were people more contented then?   It’s not for me to say,

and yet I think they seemed so in my day”.

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The Mind Cupboard                By popular demand

 

My mind cupboard overflows

with unwanted debris.

It needs a spring clean.

 

I will brush away the cobwebs

of cheerless thoughts.

Scrub out the stains of childhood.

 

I will replace the brass hooks

corroded with salt tears,

empty all the screams

hoarded through the years.

 

I will replace the accumulated ashes

from the worn shelf-paper,

with virgin tissue.

 

I will chase and catch the wasps,

relieve them of their stings.

I will refill this cupboard

with love, and learnt, brighter things.

 

 

 

                                                                            

 

With best wishes, Patricia