When I woke up on Tuesday to the news of the bombing at the Manchester Arena I was struck dumb with the enormity of it. That someone could be so cruel, so emotional removed, that they could target a concert full of children leaves me numb. I can not speak for the people of Manchester or even begin for a minute to imagine what the families who were there are going through.
My poem this week is simply an attempt to put into words how I feel.
I am ten weeks into this blog. At the beginning I didn’t have a strong idea of how the blog would turn out just a commitment to writing a new poem every week for the next 70 weeks. Looking back over the poems, I realise what I am writing is a sort of poetic autobiography. The music element has anchored the poems to certain events from my past and brought back memories I believed buried.
I have also been amazed at the global reach of the blog. I have had views from the US, France, Holland, Japan, New Zealand and even Saudi Arabia. I also had a very encouraging email from someone in Australia. Thank you to you all. Please feel free to email me with any comments or observations, they are all appreciated.
This week’s track is Fairport Convention’s “Meet on the ledge”. There is much of my life that has faded and is either lost or at best vague but some memories are so visceral that they will probably remain with me forever. The day my Mother passed away is one of those times. She had suffered for many years from Motor Neurone Disease and although her death was extremely sad for her family and friends it was a great release for her.
I am huge fan of Loudon Wainwright and have been listening to him since the early 70’s and his music has provided a soundtrack to my life. Although his experiences are not the same as mine, his songs of love and loss have echoed my feelings on many occasions. It was difficult to pick a song but as I listened this track I remembered being an altar boy at St Roberts and preparing the priests robes in the sacristy and secretly sipping the communion wine.
I am not a good drinker, I get terrible hangovers and I have learnt over the years to hold back but I still like a glass of wine or pint of beer but I enjoy it best when sitting around a dinner table with family and friends or in a bar chewing the fat with an old friend.
It wasn’t only Jesus who could turn water into wine.
When I left school at 16 my Father told me that I had a job starting on the next Monday morning at Bainbridge’s, a large department store in the centre of Newcastle. I protested that I hadn’t even had a holiday but he told me that if I lived in his house I had to pay my way and that meant a job.
Bainbridge’s was the first department stores in the world started in 1862 and in 1952 it became part of the John Lewis Partnership. In 1964 it was in Market Street Newcastle moving ten years later to Eldon Square.
I loved my time working there, I had money in pocket and the delights of Newcastle to explore with its nightclubs and bars. The town of 1964 was very different to the one today, so much of that vibrant city has been lost, crushed and homogenised but, if you explore the back streets and alleys you might hear the Animals “House of the rising Sun” pounding out from the Club A-GoGo or smell the hashish smoke in the Handyside Arcade.