Barnabas Rhymes Read online

  Space to spread out after Kingham at last.

  Marshy old Moreton, the Severn at Worcester,

  Great Malvern’s Victorian station slips past.

  On through the tunnels to Colwall and Ledbury -

  Herefordshire’s at the end of the track,

  Tarrington, Shucknell, the Lugg water meadows,

  Quiet and rural - it’s good to be back.

  Leaves on the line, night has long fallen,

  While outside the windows the starlight blinks down.

  Newspapers, workpapers, beer cans and sandwiches,

  Most are asleep on the way home from town.

  But travel in the Big Smoke is not always easy.

  Returning home with a Bus Pass from an Evening Event in London.

  We walk upon hard streets of London

  Searching for a friendly bus.

  Routemasters are ancient history,

  Tubes and taxis too much fuss.

  Too much fuss and much more costly

  As compared with free bus pass,

  Upstairs seats are warm and cheery,

  Watch the people – save our brass!

  Alas, the bus goes oh so slowly,

  Halts at every traffic light.

  Loads and unloads hordes of people,

  We wish it on with all our might.

  Paddington is still so distant

  Will our train depart on time?

  Bob the bus man – can he make it?

  Please make speed – a trivial crime.

  In the concourse running swiftly,

  Watch the clock on platform four.

  Gallop on behind the engine,

  Jump aboard that open door.

  Travel should be calm, reflective,

  Chance to watch and gently roam.

  Following our unseemly scramble,

  We're glad to head for hearth and home.

  Advancing years provide very few advantages but there are opportunities to look back and bore succeeding generations with anecdotes and advice.

  An Ageing Herefordshire Lad

  When I was three and sixty, an old man said to me,

  “‘Tis time to take your pension, lad, ‘tis time to wander free.

  ‘Tis time to make the hay now, while summer skies are bright.

  Your sunlit limbs still work, lad, your step is fairly light.

  “For autumn must be coming, though Indian summers blaze,

  The nights are drawing in, lad, and shorter grow the days.

  Time’s winged arrow points, lad, to greyer times ahead

  When winter’s skies are glowering, and summer’s blooms are dead.

  “Full forty years have passed, lad, since you took up your trade,

  Full forty summers gone lad, for you and for your maid.

  The second generation of grandsons chatter round –

  A second childhood beckons through childhood’s careless sound.

  “So lift your eyes from work, lad, cherish the things you may –

  Observe the world around you, embrace it every day.

  Spread pleasure if you can, lad, in this uncertain time,

  You can’t turn back the clock, and you’re slightly past your prime.

  “My memory’s grown dim, lad, for names of people first,

  Then faces, places, friends as well – the recent things are worst.

  But I remember well, lad, when I was sixty-three.

  Enjoy the hay, fill full each day – heed this advice from me!”

  While in corners of some fields

  Photographing Sunflowers Grown for the Pheasants

  Van Gogh did it better in his over-brilliant way,

  But I still like to record great yellow faces,

  With huge centres, petals pallisaded,

  And tranquill looking down.

  Across the glowing golden plates

  Butterflies and bees repose like supping Roman senators

  Cloaks and wings outspread,

  Pause for a time, then sip again.

  The village fete has a firm place in local life, but at a serious cost of time, sweat and even tears. Much of the necessary labour is provided by local ladies.

  Behind Village Events are the Femmes Fete-Alls.

  We’re tired but finished, the last gossiper’s gone –

  Shall we do the washing up or leave it for the morning?

  Now would be better – it’s horrid waking to debris and a full sink.

  How did you think it went?

  We could have had more people, especially those who promised to help and never came.

  But there should be some profit for the Church Repairs Fund.

  And what can we do about Mary’s cakes – she’s bound to ask?

  Can we give them away but thank her and tell her they sold well?

  That would only be a pale grey lie – but it might encourage her to bake more.

  How can she make them so impossibly hard?

  Do you think the Vicar heard Stanley effing and blinding about the barbecue?

  I expect he’s heard worse – even from the churchwardens - and it was quite exciting when the dry grass in the churchyard blazed up.

  And didn’t the ambulance make a noise when it came to collect old Alice – quite disturbed the disco?

  Yes, it was probably a mistake to let her take her shooting stick onto the Bouncy Castle.

  The siren even wakened James, slumped in his corner.

 

  Wasn’t it awful at the end when we couldn’t get rid of the Lewis family until all the booze had gone?

  I felt rude shaking the tablecloth at them, but they wouldn’t go home.

  I suppose that means they enjoyed it. Do you think they know anything about the missing beer barrel?

  Anyway, the children loved the evening – the little boys and girls whooped around until midnight.

  Staying up late will be good practice for their teenage years.

  And did you see how much midriff that group of girls was showing?

  Quite disgusting! An acre of waist with a pierced belly-button and rude tattoos, – Goodness knows what will be paraded next time.

  Oh well, that’s over for another year. Thank you for staying to the bitter end.

  Everything’s washed now and put away. But I hid part of a bottle of wine –

  Let’s sit down for a quiet toast to – The End of the Fete!

  Then as the Summer fades into memory

  October Onwards

  In the Autumn old men’s daydreams,

  Drift away to years of youth –

  Remembering passions, bizarre fashions,

  (Even then lads were uncouth)

  And ancient stories, thoughts of glories,

  Layers of varnish on the truth.

  While in the mirror - wrinkles mock us,

  Droopy lids with rheumy eyes,

  Chins are double, grey with stubble,

  Skin grown old ‘neath country skies.

  From years of wear, decades of tear –

  Decay should scarcely cause surprise.

  For as the song so neatly puts it

  Sixty years have gone too fast -

  The seasons went, however spent,

  And well or ill, lie in the past.

  Our losses grieved or goals achieved,

  How much of what we’ve done will last?

  While distant thoughts of Spring and sunshine

  Flicker through these shrinking days,

  October’s started, birds departed,

  Sunshine blinks with feeble rays.

  Yet in this season, hope and reason

  Can mitigate our dim dismays.

  Though Autumn days are cool and short

  These are the weeks of harvesting –

  Well fattened roots, and orchard fruits

  Grown ripe as Summer followed Spring.

  We may be slow, but oldies know,

  (Despite a taste for reminiscing)

  Experience h
as helped us grow.

  Each up and down of Fortune’s swing,

  Has taught us through each smile or blow,

  We’ve learned far more than young men know –

  Wisdom, not Youth’s the valued thing!

  For many years the Hereford Times gave publicity to the views of people who were adamantly opposed to the fluoridation of water and published letter against it from all over the British Isles.

  To add Fluoride or not?

  It’s a tricky toothy problem for a council to address,

  Putting fluoride in the water - ‘cause it’s toxic in excess,

  But thoroughly diluted is an aid to better life,

  So the elementary F-word causes much bad-tempered strife,

  Drink a lot and it’s a poison – surely adding poisons wrong -

  Yet a trace within the water makes your teeth grow straight and strong.

  When the right amount is present, then the dentists lose their trade -

  Fewer fillings and extractions, fewer dentures to be made.

  But deficiency of fluoride lets the caries grow and spread

  Aggravated by a diet full of sugar, sweets and bread.

  Children’s toothpaste is one answer if they’re taught to use a brush

  After visiting the tuckshop for their usual sticky mush.

  But the fluoride in the toothpaste must meet dentine every day -

  So those who rarely clean their teeth are subject to decay,

  And unless the local council adds some fluoride to the mains

  Expect lots of cavitation, lots of drilling, dental pains.

  There are people who blame fluoride, from the green and potty fringes,

  For all tumours and for ulcers, aches and pains and horrid twinges.

  These concerns are largely bogus, paranoia running wild -

  Fluoride could prevent the cavities in almost every child.

  Now in Worcester they get extra F. with every pint they sink -

  On the other side of Malvern, there is fluoride with each drink.

  But the councils of the Marches have decided we shall not -

  So from Colwall on and westwards the decaying molars rot.

  Thus the ancient Herefordian can be recognised with ease

  From his stumpy black incisors and his thick bronchitic wheeze,

  Molars missing, gums receding, while the local weekly News

  Brain-washes toothless readers with its anti-fluoride views.

  And if the dispute about fluoride seems to have stopped, we have more up-to-date worries about health, and especially overeating. Of course these are not confined to Herefordshire.

  Solidly Built

  She was morbid, she was massive, she weighed almost twenty stone,

  When she fell into her bed the springs gave out a mighty groan,

  While the members of her family were also over-tubby-

  Her brothers and her children and her big, long-suffering hubby.

 

  "You are what you have eaten" is a view that's often heard,

  Which the members of this family thought totally absurd -

  Saying "Atkins for the fatikins" was just a greedy wheeze

  To enable its inventor to enjoy a life of ease,

  Or the Rice diet, or Grapefruit, or from clever dons at Cambridge

  The Replacement Meals in little pots that clutter up your fridge,

  And also Low Carb, Cabbage, Hips and Thighs, Macrobiotic,

  The Hay programme that's fibre-rich, some even more exotic.

  So they guzzle chips and pizzas, beer, MacDonalds full of grease-

  Thus we can predict with certainty - they'll always be obese.

  The writer likes to think he is almost unnaturally patient and tolerant, but even he sometimes becomes a trifle irritated on Herefordshire roads or when he drives further afield.

  A Hoot of Hate or My Unfavourite Things

  Drivers despicable, drivers demented,

  Drivers too reckless in cars badly dented,

  Drivers of sports teams in vans they have rented,

  Drivers with slogans some fool has invented.

  Drivers with dangly things blocking their vision,

  How can they see to prevent a collision?

  There are other road hogs whom I hate in addition.

  I wish they’d drive off down the road to perdition.

  Drivers who cannot remember their names

  Needing labels like Sharon or Kevin or James,

  Drivers of bangers that belch smoke and flames,

  Drivers who play stupid motorway games.

  The Birmingham driver so rude and so grumpy,

  The muck-cart that leaves the road smelly and bumpy,

  The learner proceeding so slowly and jumpy,

  The reckless young oaf with his head full of scrumpy.

  Long distance lorries that drive to intimidate,

  Drivers that cannot be bothered to indicate,

  The old Morris Minor that’s flat out at twenty-eight

  These are a few of the things that I hate!

  Drivers despicable, drivers demented,

  Drivers deplorable, brains long fermented,

  I hope they feel crushed now my fury’s been vented,

  But I fear they’re too thick to hear what I’ve commented.

  When the car hoots,

  When the tyre blows,

  When I’m feeling mad,

  I try not to remember these horrible drivers,

  And then I don’t feel quite so bad.

  Home and Hearth

  Starting the day well is tremendously important

  Morning’s First Love

  O sweetest maid, last century’s great boon

  Your smooth white side beside me as I sleep,

  Thy morning benison restores my feeble frame

  Gently revives until I’m all alive

  And ready to embrace this daily gift

  As juices flow and slumb’ring spirits lift.

  Throughout the night if I should stir and stare

  I see your deep green eyes - they reassure

  That in the morning duty shall be done,

  My needs attended to with hot despatch

  Not just one taste, but with repeated sips

  Raised to my worshipping and thirsty lips.

  Soon, my sweet maid, will your faint murmurings

  Ascend towards triumphant wild success

  As boiling water joins the waiting leaves

  To make the cup that cheers - ‘twill get me up.

  A little further rest, then without strife

  Each mug of tea infuses useful life.

  Dear Teasmaid, welcoming another morn,

  Release me from the drowsy land of dreams.

  Device devoid of threat or vice -

  Your selfless contribution to this day

  Deserves a paean of praise beyond my pen!

  Dear Teasmaid, let me top you up again.

  And especially after a disturbed night

  Prospects are so Changeable

  The unexpected event was my trip in an open aeroplane over Shobdon.

  The bad news is that I’m terrified of heights.

  The good news was that I had an experienced pilot.

  The bad news was that he liked to show off.

  The good news was that he only flew upside down for a short time.

  The bad news was that I fell out.

  The good news was that I had a parachute.

  The bad news was that I did not know how to open it.

  The good news was that I found a string marked “pull”.

  The bad news was that the parachute didn’t open.

  The good news was a hay cart in the field below.

  The bad news was that I was falling behind it.

  The good news was that the horse became frightened and backed the cart.

  The bad news was a pitchfork in the hay.

  The good news was that the
prongs were downwards.

  The bad news was that I banged my head on the handle.

  The good news was that when I opened my eyes an angelic girl bent over me.

  The bad news was that ringing bells interrupted us.

  The good news was that my Teasmaid had made a cup on the bedside table.

  But the bad was no-one to share it with on St. Valentine’s Day.

  And then when dressing and looking for clothes and especially socks. (NB Chadds was an old established department store in Hereford – now sadly deceased.)

  Missing from the Top Drawer

  or

  One of Life’s Deepest Mysteries

  I buy my hose with care each time

  From Chadds* or M and S,

  On many days one goes astray -

  So choice gets less and less.

  Now every chap confirms this fact -

  The mystery is weird,

  We men have stocks of single socks,

  Their partners disappeared.

  Lone sock, where is your sibling now -

  Oh drawer, your hidden loot?

  Stands there a thief with one peg leg

  My stocking on his foot?

  The lady boss suggests the loss

  May happen during laundering.

  She scorns my own hypothesis -

  That specs and socks like wandering.

  My wife declares I must wear pairs,

  Sartorially correct.

  My birthday isn’t far away -

  I know what I’ll expect.

  While in the Garden

  Tiger Worms, or Composting for Beginners

  Tigers, Tigers, chewing brightly

  On the scraps we give you nightly,

  Not including bones or tins,

  Those go into recycling bins.

  Though you're small and very thin

  Living in our special bin,

  Breeding fast by ones or twos,

  A busy can of worms ensues.

  Though you’ve neither paws nor eye

  To mar your streamlined symmetry -

  Tigers’ jaws will grind scraps small,

  Break them down and eat them all.