Poverty not austerity

Posted on by celfypridd

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

My life and colour

Posted on by celfypridd

When Gerald Fowler, the Minister for Education and his entourage emerged from the theatre it was a startling sight. The smoke of the rescue flare thrown into the theatre by a student had dyed his face and his white shirt a very bright pink and intended to show that he wasn’t  a real socialist – he wasn’t red enough. The minister of education couldn’t hide his look of fury as the press took photographs. And he looked angrier as he caught the sound of a student laughing loudly.

(Short story excerpt)

 

Austerity

Posted on by celfypridd

Austerity

 

I worked today

in green cargo shorts

cutting grass

in the orchard

Thoughts turned

to boyhood

and wearing short trousers

and chilblains

you never hear

of them these days

Or the blistering

pain of cold hands

fingers and feet

coming home

and sitting

with bowls

of warmed water.

Winters of such coldness

of fogs and days

of endless rain

and taking turns

hanging coats

near a coke stove

in the school room

and then snows

that fell in heaps

and weeks

of blackened

uneatable

vegetables

and crops frozen

in fields.

Good old days.

.

 

 

RAC