Millbank

Mill Bank

At last the water flows to Abbey Mill.

It is summer.

Early in the morning an apricot sky

Greets the new day..

Mist rises from the Severn Ham.

The sun’s disc rises to reveal

Morning Mill Bank. 

Flowers open and Mill Bank prepares for another day of visitors.

For Mill Bank is pretty,

Amazingly pretty.

When Mill Bank was first built, 

The random roof lines weren’t for tourists,

People just wanted some shelter from rain,

And warmth from the chill of a cold winter’s night.

But the cottages are beautiful!

Artlessly, accidentally, built into artful shapes.

Today, in the warmth of the sun, they bask in loveliness,

Their innocent beauty is wrought from the labour of long-forgotten men.

Built by artisans, not architects,

They created this picturesque row.

On summer mornings such as this,

Flowers delight the outsides of the cottages.

Poppies and daisies and baskets of flowers

Adorn Mill Bank.

The Alleys and Courts

The Alleys and Courts

In Tewkesbury when the rain comes down, 

Floods sometimes flow up into town.

There’s a tiny risk that you might drown.

The three main streets are on less low land,

So the houses on the streets are dry.

Small cottages were built 

Behind the houses on the streets,

So the cottages stayed dry.

Ways  to the street from the cottages are “Courts”

Some of the Courts join the streets at both ends.

These passages linking the streets are called  “Alleys”.

They’re too narrow for horses; we walk single  file,

The sounds of our footsteps are heard all the while,

As we pass down dark passages which go back for years; 

We travel through time back to Mediaeval years.

My Uncle Tom

My  Uncle Tom

My Uncle Tom worked in a shoe shop called Frisby’s, 

Which is thirty feet from the Cross.

He fitted boots for all sorts of feet.

That was his job and he was good at it.

By 1916 he wore Army boots

In the Royal Field Artillery.

While he drove along the banks of the Somme.

Could the pale blue sky and the white hoar frost

Remind him of the January Avon?

He drove his ammunition cart, full, to the Line.

That was his job and he was good at it .

The last thing he heard was a faraway gun.

His comrades buried him with due honour.

In less than a year when the Germans drew near,

A shell cratered the grave of Uncle Tom.

His remains were scattered on the banks of the Somme.

But his name is carved on the Tewkesbury Cross,

About thirty feet from Frisby’s

Tewkesbury Poems

Start of another book?

I've been playing around with another book about Tewkesbury.  This one will have some poems in as well as some photos.  I'd love some feedback on whether you think they work or not.

The Severn Ham

Soil, Silt, and Sand

From Central England

Borne by rivers formed by rain and snow.

Each year the waters overflow,

and grasses grow, on the soil, silt and sand 

This land they call “The Severn Ham”.

It’s quiet on the Ham, away from the town.

Buttercups bob in the balmy breeze. 

You can hear that breeze in the mowing grass,

 The grass where  lovers sigh, crows caw, and plovers dance.

Three Rivers meet at the Severn Ham:

The Severn smells of the sea at high tide,

and the silver leaps of the salmon. 

The Swilgate Brook which brooked an army over five centuries gone,

no longer smells of blood.

The sleepy Avon lined with Brummy anglers,

Smells of coarse fish, the wriggle of eels and elvers,

And sleepy, summery, Midland towns.

Tewkesbury lies flat as the horizon,

only broken by the Abbey tower.