I NEVER WILL FORGET

My Godmother Dorothy Moore was buried yesterday. Twelve people attended here funeral. It was 280 miles away - 5 hours. I didn't go. She was 92. I had not seen here for several years and indeed my Godfather had asked that I did not go to see them. I think he thought they had reached a state he did not want me to see them in, and he had his pride. With sadness I honoured that request. Phone calls were then never responded to.

Dorothy and Edgar Moore were wonderful to me, they would look after me when my mum and dad were teaching at the ice rink. I would play with their Yorkshire Terrier Cindy. I would pull her out by her whiskers from under the sideboard (I was six) and once they could not find the poor pooch who was in one of the drawers! She never retaliated but perhaps was relieved when I left at the end of a 'baby sitting' session? Fish fingers and tomato sauce were my staple diet and I always felt safe and loved with them.

Dorothy and Edgar had a daughter Margaret whom my parents taught in ice dancing. Margaret tragically died at around 35.

I'm sad I didn't go to the funeral but I imagine Dorothy would have said - "No no you get on with your life." I remember she had once listened to me across their kitchen table as I explained - at age 40 something that I thought there was no one for me in the world - by way of a girl to be with for life. "There will be someone.' she confidently asserted. In a kind of spit-spot Margaret Thatcher warm and confident way. My - she was right.

They were a wonderful Northern couple to me, never knocking people - even Robert Maxwell who stole their pension and gave them hardship. Edgar was a newspaperman - a printer, Dorothy in her later years before her illness helped Marie Curie Cancer greatly cheering up people young and old.

Edgar was proud that he was driving up until his mid eighties and was never one to complain. Although he did give me some gip for my marks on Strictly Ice Dancing when it came on.

I remember them fondly.

Perhaps that's what today I wrote two verses - one about D - Day and one about our Capital Gains Tax which will affect pensions and how I sensed a 'Spirit of Fear' being propogated in the newspapers. Whatever it is - or because it's a Friday - I thought I would share them.

I NEVER WILL FORGET

I was a happy wanderer

Upon untroubled seas

When I heard the call

The radio beseeched

Men are stranded

On a foreign beach

Lives were being lost

We had to help them

Whatever the cost

We hoisted our mainsail

Engines full ahead

Sailed the murky depths

Going where they’d said

Guns roared above us

Smoke filled the air

Thousands in the water

Singing, saying prayers

We took aboard

The nearest men

All that we could hold

Then we promised

To come back

Four journeys later

Two hundred souls

Back to fight again

Some to fill the honour rolls

And I never will forget

Their dark faces as we’d go

Hoping we’d come back again

Hoping they’d get home

And I never will forget

The sound of the guns

And the calmness all about us

As mothers lost their sons

© Copyright 2010 N M Slater

Friday, 28 May 2010

SPIRIT OF FEAR

CH: Times they are a changing

Spirit of Fear

Money I once had

Disappeared (Rpt)

V1: I’m afraid

What will we do

Worked a lifetime

You’ve loved me through

I’ve tried to do what’s right

Sometimes - you know - it’s been a fight

Now how to pay our way

Work till you drop they say

V2: Pensions gone

Funds went down

Confidence crashing

All around

How will we make it through

How will others make it too

Time to leave grieve

What to do

V3: I heard about

A man who died

He’d a big house, fancy car

But no one heard his cries

A fire with his family

Verdict

Suicide

V4: Why save at all

Changing rules

Companies fail

Bonuses fools

Dog eat dog

Fighting abused

It’s tough for me now

It’s tough for you

© Copyright 2010 Nicky Slater

Friday, 28 May 2010