Day: June 22, 2016

Poverty not austerity

 

You were born in the Great War

You spoke of your first memory

Watching the funeral procession

Of an unknown Australian soldier

 

You spoke of your childhood

And the innocence of those days

Of hardship during the depression

Of disease and short lived babyhood

 

You reached school leaving age

And at fourteen left the valley

For service in a bankers house

It’s not hard to feel the outrage

 

A child alone in a Chelsea house

A child alone far from home

Earning money for the family

hard pressed times and no choice

 

And the irony of being bullied

By an old Welsh house keeper

Because you didn’t speak

the language. A small child.

 

That’s what you were

A child in hard times

Doing your best for your

Brothers and sisters.

 

RAC