Tewkesbury Floods

Tewkesbury Floods

In Summer I played in the mowing grass

Among the buttercups, the cornflowers and daisies,

I heard a chaffinch make its call.

In the hedges with briars and elm trees so tall 

They seemed to be crowned with white clouds, every one, 

While I warmly basked in the Gloucestershire sun.

Moving on . . . now the elm trees have gone.

Killed with disease . . . just a few linger on.

A plain, flat and featureless, save one great tower

That’s all there is until you look lower

And see the town, and three rivers that flood.

(The Swilgate once ran ruddy with blood)

For nine centuries now, St Mary’s has stood

Proud on an island just clear of the flood,

For the builders knew precisely just where the land

Was best to let the huge Abbey stand.

Just above levels of flood and of tide

The Abbey stays dry with no water inside.

Five hundred years ago townsfolk designed 

Half-timbered houses and similar kind

In higgledy streets, down piggledy lanes

Dwellings were built just above the floodplains.

The Abbot and townsfolk continued to keep

An eye on the waters so they didn’t run deep.

Our shattered last Century was scattered around

So that cars, trucks and tarmac covered the ground.

More people!  More houses!  Oh! Why don’t we build

The houses in suburbs - where flood land was tilled?

Now, when it rains hard, we sandbag the doors.

“There’s mud in the kitchen and dirt on the stairs.

But last year was worse, you can tell by that stain

On the wall”.  But alas, every year, homes are flooded again.

No cornflowers are left in the mowing grass high,

The Abbey looks down where I played, and men sigh.

For hundreds of years, old Tewkesbury was dry

But now, every winter, the water comes by.

And the blind men, the deaf men continually cry

“The water comes by

But we don’t know why”