VIII. Horwich
BEFORE MEN HAD COME
At first Queen Street had no tarmac and you could
see where a bit of a field had been before
all the houses were built. Must have been a wood
too down Vale Avenue where the rookery
was. If I were a rook, I would like to soar
up to the clouds and look down. Perhaps I'd see
what my grandfather rook had seen, everything
green, and the houses just extras. On some days
all the rooks all together would take off flying
up in the sky, up and up. You had to gaze
hard to see them. Up that high, the world so small,
you could pretend that men hadn't come at all.
THE BOUNDARY
We were near to the edge of Horwich, but you
couldn't exactly tell where it was. You'd go
through the trees to the end of Vale Avenue,
there was the paper works, the winding Douglas
in the low, flat, green fields, but you'd ask where, though,
we stopped and Blackrod began. Felt the strangeness
by the junction — yes, that wasn't us at all,
but when you cycled towards it there was no
place, no line which could show you. They'd built no wall
keeping us in and them out. Nothing to show
up by Rivington either or along at
Lostock. But we knew this was this, that was that.
THE PLAGUE PIT
On the old map a plague pit was shown, up by
Tiger's Clough. Thought of all those corpses buried
where just grass grew now. Worse was thinking just why
all of them died, not knowing about the black
rats, the fleas, thinking vinegar protected
you! The Black Death was the black rats. To attack
them just never occurred to them. Terrible
thinking you could be scared just when a flea
bit you, but you'd take no notice, might wriggle
brushing it off, but you would already be
marked for death. Being blind was like being mad.
Was there anything we were doing as bad?
LE PETTIT'S ENGRAVING OF HORWICH (c. 1825)
Is 'le Pettit's engraving of Horwich'. So
strange to see time that isn't ours. Is a view
from up Blackrod. Those trees, feathery, black, show
old-fashioned silhouettes here in the foreground,
and just near us the picnicking women who
talk at their ease, save for one who's turned around
and stood up and is looking surprised at us.
There the horizon of moor, smooth as a seal
basking; sky clear save for some gray cumulus
cloud leaning off to the east, Smoke trails reveal
the bleach works and the mills, but no Works, no town,
just a dark bosky mound, a road to its crown.
THE WILD GEESE
Heard a honk and looked up. The wild geese again.
They really knew where they were going. The V
pointed straight to the place, some far-distant fen
out of the way of the cold. Didn't matter
who the leader was there at the front. You'd see
others go first sometimes. The V went flatter
or went longer, a break here, or there, even
turned to a W, and wobbled as wings
took one goose up, another down; their union,
though, still showed sure in their pointings, their searchings
that were hopefully one, if never so. Yet
they were parallel lines that finally met.
THE SUNDIAL
On G. Hennet's map, 1830, were shown
'sundials' at Hilton and Horwich Vale houses,
and the one at the latter was just where our house
was built, 54. Puzzled me: what kind
of a sundial then is it that arouses
so a Victorian cartographer's mind
he conceives it as worthy to be present
there on his three-quarter-inch map? Was it then
on the ground, very large, almost a monument,
made for the passer-by without a watch when
he or she didn't know the time? It was fun
that our land, like our life, was traced by the sun.
PEARL BROOK
Our house, 54, Vale Avenue, between
Red Moss and Green Ground wasn't on a yellow
or an orange place. Only Pearl Brook was seen
there on the map but it ran like a gutter
in a cobblestone ditch. Sometimes it would flow
yellow or rusty brown; always a clutter
of old cans, cigarette-packets and fish-and-
chip papers clogged it in places. But it must
have once been a clean, winding brook through green land —
daisies and pignuts and buttercups (no rust
from the Loco Works, no dye from the Bleach, no
nasty rubbish from us) — that purled in its flow.
A TOWN STREAM
Behind Darley Street, Catherine Street, a stream
ran by the path just by Pearl Brook Farm. Was it
Pearl Brook? That, channelled straight in stone, didn't seem
anything like it. Chuckling along, it fell
from the left, from the right, straight on in midget
waterfalls, shaking little pools in each dell
it had scooped out. Its sand was all blue cinder
washed from the Recky, and a cigarette end
or two frayed in the water, but its glitter,
happy as its chuckles, had made it my friend.
Any day I could choose by its side to walk down.
It was half way between the country and town.
ROPES OF LIVES
In the comics when people went fast they left
lines streaming after them, showing where they had
been. Was funny — you sort of were a loose weft
sliding on streets, up and down stairs, a knobbly
rope that went back through years, and time, it forbade
you to go back and straighten any wobbly
places. Pulled out a wire from an old wireless
coil. Was all kinky like that. There you set out
for school, day after day, and went home, tireless
day after day. And in Horwich all about
every corner were ghost ropes trailing just where
people's lives had been traced, where now was just air.
FLOWING
It was up looking down on Horwich one day,
summer and sunshine and drifting smoke. You'd think
that with all of those people, children at play,
grown-ups at work, all were seeing and feeling
in their own special way, but there'd be a link
over to someone else somehow in talking,
or remembering, all those thoughts flowing like
currents inside some big river that had to
find the sea. There you were, standing on the Pike,
lonely and still; above, nothing but the blue
sky, with curlew cries that the wind was blowing,
but you knew all the same you too were flowing.
REDMAINES WOOD
We were told by Miss Hester that once Chorley
New Road was not there. A hundred years ago
where school was was 'Redmaines Wood', so shady
trees grew where desks were. I'd imagine an oak
with its zigzagging branches and there below,
sitting, was me with my reading book, a joke
I enjoyed by myself. And sycamore Y's
twirled round our heads in Arithmetic. If I
got the cane, I'd look up and what met my eyes,
playing with sun, were pine needles, and the sky
was all edged with blue needles. There I would stand
in that Redmaines Wood, not noticing my hand.
JOHN RAMSBOTTOM'S CHOICE
When they built Horwich Works in 1884,
the Chief Engineer of the LYR,
one John Ramsbottom, had thought it no weighty
matter a hill at the south-east end of the site
there would have to be flattened. It was no bar
given his Irish navvies. Who cared what height
it was? Hundreds of men, steam engines, horses,
laboured away this pyramid where Old Hart's
Farm had stood. He commanded godlike forces.
Cuttings, embankments — what was this for his carts
but one huge cutting? But why did one so bright,
so astute, choose such an unsuitable site?
IN THE GREAT WINTERS OF THE FORTIES
All the hedges and walls were like fast-moving
things in the comics, snow streaking away east
in long wakes as they rushed to the west. Grooving
long smooth bobsleigh runs, raising crescent crests
like a magnified rasp, the snow let us play
hide-and-seek, tunnelling under on strange quests
after North Wind's mysterious promises
over a land where all marks of you and you
were a glittering blank. Leaning cornices,
cracking like ice-cream, dammed Vale Avenue
with great waves playing Statues. Striding across
where a hedge or a wall had been was no loss.
THE SNOWDRIFTS
On the slope outside school in the big winter
huge rolled-up snowdrifts made a frozen ocean,
its white billows all still. You could print a
track with your feet on the top of a great wave
and then hide in a trough, its sides like woven
glass. You could tunnel through, making a quick cave,
and pop up just where no one expected you,
snow on your eyebrows. And the sun's glitter ran
with you over diamond dunes as you flew
on down a slide like a bobsleigh, a boatman
in a space above secret grass, and dangling your feet
where you never could be in the summer's heat.
DAWNS AND SUNSETS IN HORWICH
With the hills to the east, Horwich had sudden
dawns and long sunsets. Cycling to school you'd see
a bright sun burst up over a high horizon,
sweeping the dark away to rags of shadow
on the slopes. It had switched on its stage-lights: tree,
grass, house and street ready for the play. Rainbow
sparks went flying ahead through the dew as you
rode. In the evening, slow twilight stole
time: a faded light, not a fading one, drew
pageant-long shadow-scenery through the whole
town. The morning as youth, the evening as age,
when performers prepare for leaving the stage.
THE THUNDERSTORMS
Was a big panorama for thunderstorms
seen from my bedroom. Thor's anvil, like Mammy's
clothes-iron upside-down, the first of the forms
towering miles high, folding sharply under
as if vast blankets slid over the edges
pulled back inside the dark chasm. The thunder
sudden-bombed the whole county from deep behind
violet, volcanic cloud that had flashed seconds
back with a brighter lilac. Then lightning would bind
sky to the earth an instant with its thousands
of electron volts, cracking the cloud. An hour
I would watch, feeling safe from the aimless power.
THE WEATHER
Saw the weather each day showing Horwich in
different clothes. Tweedy autumn days, with leaves
coloured mustard and madder and puce that spin
over the soft blue sky and the haze of distance
to the winds that flap chimney smoke, posters, sheaves,
equally randomly. Its disappearance
in the brown habit monks of fog wear, bearing
torches like street-lamps through the dark aisles. Its gloss
from the silks of the rain showers, glistening
under the rainbows. And befurred with the floss
of the snow, or a shroud's silence. Together
they discarded clothes, Horwich and the weather.
OLD HORWICH
Up the Chorley Old Road was the old Horwich.
Up in a clearer air, houses of gray stone,
lintels of broad weight (we were told, the gray which
'Hor-' meant, like 'hoary', with '-wich', a dwelling-place ).
From the old road you saw farther, for there, blown
freshly upon, till the wind 'coldened' your face,
stretched out dark ridges like promontories, far
off to the gleaming sea. There was a graveyard,
weathered slabs just as gray, and a reservoir
hemmed in as by Stone Age barrows. As a guard
from the past in the mist and the driving rain
or the sun, felt the force of some ancient strain.
THE LANDS
Was a way to the lands in the books, it seemed,
over the hills and far away, yes, our hills,
over Two Lads, but was as if you had dreamed
'cause if you went up there, there'd be another
long horizon with only the Belmont mills
waiting below when you got there. Seemed better
to stay down back in Horwich looking up at
Two Lads, where clouds were going somewhere that you
couldn't, out of your sight. The far-off lands that
lay in that no-place waiting, the only clue
that you had was this absence, a sort of blur.
To be out of reach, that's what they really were.
A NEW HORWICH
I'd be standing on Blackrod ridge looking at
Horwich. The Socialist and Communist Shock
Workers of Mars would have been and gone. I'd see that
Horwich had been transformed: noble palaces
of a fine gray stone, smooth, Inca-like each block
sculpted to fit; towers, fountains, terraces,
and those avenues lined with pines. There the great
library, having a children's wing almost
as big. Swimming-pool under a dome of plate-
glass like a faceted diamond. The boast
of the town the new Picture House Theatre,
with my daddy in charge, the new manager.
THE DIALECT
All those railwaymen coming from Derby and
Crewe when the Works was begun so long ago,
you see, didn't speak Lancashire, were a band
whose bare pronunciation didn't have strong
hooting vowels and thumping consonants. 'Know',
'throw' and 'below' roared like furnace doors; not wrong
to say 'smookin' or 'Lancashire' very flat —
all the Westhoughton people did, though its name
sounded 'haughty'. They called it 'Owfen'. Knew that
Jack Chadwick's father had built up local fame
with his poetry in it. Not for me,
though, that voice. Had to copy the BBC.
SONGS OF HOME
Scots sang 'Westering home', and in Ireland
'It was a long way to Tipperary'. You
heard the Welsh sing 'The Ash Grove'. When you listened
to a song specially for us like the one in
which the north country maid down in London grew
homesick and wanted to go back to her kin,
with 'the lads and the lasses making the hay'
under 'the oak and the ash and the bonny
ivy tree', you would wish that perhaps one day
someone would write a song that was specially
about Horwich, much better than 'Home, sweet home'.
I would sing it then if 'I ever did roam.'
THE MILLS
When you looked down on Bolton, the cotton mills
seemed to be moored in the haze like oil tankers,
rusty, steep-sided, harboured between the hills,
each with its tapering chimney, its woolly
spread of widening smoke. They upped their anchors,
made all of Bolton sail westward in sooty
ships, and nobody stopped them because your bread
had to be earned, and jennies and mules had to
jiggle about all the day, living flesh and dead
metal. Had made the towns, the cities. They grew
people, too. And the locos that all those skilled
men must work on, that Horwich was built to build.
A COTTON-MILL
Up on Church Street a cotton-mill. Was 'ugly
industry'. But you could, on an April day,
look up high at the brickwork, and the sunny
sky and the clouds played about with each neat shape
geometric the builder had made, and they
moulded a cloud-edge in a swift shadowscape,
and their height near the sky exalted them to
crags on a mountain. The windows so dulled and shone
with the cloud and the blue this grim building grew
out of its dourness into a Helicon,
a Himalaya. A 'satanic mill' — was a duty
to despise it — had sublimity, beauty.
THE PRINCE'S THEATRE*
We could go to the Prince's Theatre free,
but it was always the pictures, never plays.
Sometimes brass bands performed; sometimes a party
hired it for meetings. Was all gloomy inside,
like a chapel, all painted in browns and grays.
Pillars in thin cast-iron, their tops beautified
with some ferny gilt spirals, were the supports,
set like a cloisters, of a small balcony.
Used to wish, as I sat, waiting for the shorts,
plays would come on again, say, a comedy.
Would be nice, too, to act there one day. But all
it was used for, he said, was a music-hall.
[Known familiarly as 'Johnny's, after the original
owner Johnny Holland}
HORWICH LIBRARY
That the library was free was so marvellous.
There in a square all the children's books in range
all around, from the puzzles and the famous
people, the Arthur Mees, the folding-paper
books, the chess and backgammon ones, and the strange
reptiles, to Biggles and Tarka the Otter,
Arthur Ransome and M. E. Atkinson, just
there for the choosing. You could read all of Henty
or the William books. A pity you must
only have four, but couldn't carry any
more. I liked the thick bindings, specially made,
and the pleasure you got, as if you had played.
PICKUP'S CHIMNEY
Pickup's chimney I saw had a square top-hat,
funny like that of Grimes, a Victorian
tall one; also the 'P' could be a cravat
making it into a man,but I didn't
like the man all the same. No comedian —
rather a Grimes himself grown gigantic, lent
a weird life both above and inside of ours.
Tiny the bricks up there, showing how high he
was while pasting the smoke from his black tower's
vertical throat. 'Where there's muck, there's brass,' Daddy
used to say. Like a monument, it was odd,
sort of awful-sublime, like some kind of god.
ROCKHAVEN CASTLE
Castled Gothick black house, abandoned above
Horwich. Red star at sunset, burning below
the horizon. A garden full of foxglove,
woody nightshade, moss, nettles. My telescope
showed it jerkily, with each curtainless window
like the side of a hearse. We mounted the slope
in a treacherous wind, staggering. Shelter
in its yard was like prison. The back-door opened
like an easy betrayal for trespasser,
thief. The books! I saw only books! We listened.
To take books, for the taking! No cash to pay!
At a creak we both rushed out of doors away.
THE RECKY*
It was strange how the most ordinary spots
seemed to be soaked, like a blotter, with what you
had been doing there before, but, since it was lots,
you had forgotten the times. The Recky's dirt
was a flat ground, all cinders, and yet you knew,
each time you went, it was the Sahara Desert
turned by magic to purple, with wadis which
wound in most wonderful serpent twists, the harsh
clinker-stuff smoothly scooped round down to the ditch,
hidden with crouching hawthorn, a witch's marsh.
Though the make-believe didn't make these glories.
all the wonder was made up from the stories.
* The Recreation Ground, Horwich, a broad waste-ground used in the past as a race-track, now built over.
THE GREEN GROUNDS
Could see Horwich as on a plateau if you
went down the Green Grounds, the town hidden behind
Crown Lane's trees. Kind of common. You saw the true
land that had been before anyone came there.
There were no walls or hedges, nothing to bind
you into one track. Just like your kite in the air
you could wander about, sail your boat freely
there on the lodge or down the Douglas. I liked
all the green in the sunlight, and the breezy
space. Like the yacht Daddy made me, when I biked
where I liked on the tiny grass, I was blown
anywhere anyhow, as if I had flown.
THE PARK
Just across from the Works was the Park. Tennis
courts, and a bowling green, football pitch — not much
of a park. At the gate was a notice
warning you not to touch the plants and keep off
the grass, keep to the paths. It told you that such
times it was open and such not. Was a trough
like the ones for the horses but no fountain.
Edges like purply-grey pipes kept the pansies
in their places. There was no forest or mountain.
Seemed to be nature on Sunday. Held Daddy's
hand. You couldn't disturb anything that way.
Lever Park was the best: that was for real play.
THE SHIELD IN FLOWERS
In the park was a shield made all of flowers.
'G' and a Roman 'V' — they stood for the King.
They were pansies and white. All round were others
planted in blue, and the margins were red,
so was red, white and blue inside a big ring
made up of plump and starry 'phlox', Daddy said.
So the pansies were being patriotic.
Jubilee joy was what they were showing, and
you could write with them too. But you couldn't pick
any of them. Like rubbing out with your hand,
when the gardener had taken such care to plant
like a picture. You can't spoil his shield, you can't.
THE WAR MEMORIAL
Was a gun all of bronze, the wooden stock too.
Up on his pedestal the soldier held his
rifle grounded in front of him. Through-and-through
metal his face and his arms, his uniform,
and his puttees and shoes; even the laces
solid in bronze. And he stood there in snowstorm,
rainstorm, heatwave and frost, a sentry on guard.
There was a little green verdigris that lined
all his wrinkles and creases as if some hard
snow from his angry world still clung to him. Kind
people, long ago, paid for this tall statue.
All the men on the plinth could be up there too.
GRAVEYARD
Horwich graveyard was like Uncle John's bathroom
shop, all those smooth marble blocks with gold carvings.
You could almost expect a tap on a tomb;
down at the end of a grave a neat plughole;
and the clinging gown, on an angel with wings,
wet from the bath, as if after death the soul
went to wash all the time like the Romans did,
fountains all round them and shining terraces
and big statues. Some graves, though, were crooked,
mouldy and cracked, the angels and Jesuses
handless, noseless, like Roman ruins, again
turned to stones and washed only by wearing rain.
DAFFODIL HILL
Up on Daffodil Hill, liked to think they were
orchestras, all of little horns, and they blew
out their music in yellows. Were all astir
'cause their conductor the wind kept them playing.
They went each their own way except when they knew
sunlight was coming, when they made their swaying
music come to a bright and breezy climax,
just as if petals became sunlight, aglow
right through, pointing their trumpets, shiny as wax,
all ways to create the loudest crescendo
they could reach. Then, soft, to a minuet,
an adagio you could never forget.
THE RIVER DOUGLAS
It was funny about the River Douglas.
Liverpool Corporation had dammed away
nearly all of its water, but its clearness
down in its too big meanders held my eyes.
Was a shop-window flat in the yellow clay,
or an aquarium there down below you,
where the sticklebacks flashed in triangles like
flies round a lamp, and a big water-beetle
would go oaring about. A roach, like a pike
huge in that little world, her tail a-ripple
just to keep her, a Red Queen, in that one place.
In my mind I would swim there in the strange space.
IN THE LOWLANDS
In the lowlands you'd see the River Douglas
swerving about like a worm or jigsaw lines.
It was deep. You saw all of it flow, endless
rounding a bend or straightening out, with weeds
inside waving like banners with any twines
always smoothed off, and it made the spiky reeds
quiver. Secret it was, hiding stickleback,
roach, and those tiny pale shrimps that humped themselves
with a jump like a lamb's, and the bowler-black
beetles scrambling headfirst down. You stood on shelves
of the grass that the cows had prodded, would be
chilled by cold evening breezes, late after tea.
FENCES
One could walk freely, even run, and run back
along all the roads, alleys, paths. Pickups' wall,
just as high a castle's, was safe from attack,
like the furnaces burning inside. The war
had unwelded the fences and dates, but all
the small gardens had plots I couldn't explore,
couldn't play with the gnomes, couldn't tell the time
from the miniature sundial, nor make a maze
with the crazy-paving. To cross was a crime.
See the sleepers on end, keeping the railway's
danger from us, for there the human action
ran the faster by mechanical traction.
THE CUT
Beside Horwich line ran a stream in a cut.
Water was kept as straight as a railway track.
I liked watching the way it flowed along, but
every so often there's be tin-cans and bricks
as a dam. I would get a stick and attack,
loosening them, glad to see the water mix
up the blockage and sweep it down, sometimes so
hard it would break through the next one and send that
flooding on. There's be nothing but a long row,
quivering criss-cross, of shooting waves that knit
all the cut in a lovely run. "Is the sink
smelling?" Daddy would ask. "What a horrible stink!"
LOOKING DOWN ON HORWICH
Looking down onto Horwich from up the Pike
opened up streets that ran away from you. They'd
rise up hills, disappear until a long hike
farther on, narrower each time, so you'd see
the milk cart had shrunk much smaller on each grade,
finally vanishing forever. But Lee
Lane and Chorley New Road went sideways across.
Anyone turning into them disappeared
right away. You'd pretend you made up for the loss
counting another, say, cycling, who had steered
out that second. Was doing a kind of pawn
with them: just as one died, another was born.
THE THREE STREETS
Just as I saw funny faces on cars, each street
turned into someone. Lee Lane didn't know if
to be friendly or cold was the best. You'd meet
nice folk like Auntie Annie one end inside
little stone houses. Down at the other, stiff
people in posh shops made you eager to ride
past. Then Chorley New Road was all ruled and straight,
tramlines without a bend, and cliff-like buildings,
and the church and the tram-shed, such a grey weight
pressing on you of solemn official things.
But short Winter Hey Lane had toyshops so gay,
and it wriggled along as if it could play.
ROADS AND STREETS
It was up Crown Lane standing on the pedals
to the school in the rain. On sunny Friday
along Lee Lane to weekend freedom. Travels
on the trams down the Chorley New Road. Streets mapped
my emotions. Lines intersecting lines, they
cut their corners in me. This way, feet were strapped
to a bike: in the other direction, I
was freewheeling downhill, no hands. No choosing
of the day. See the sun had to climb so high
for his afternoon ease — see him refusing
to keep track of the stars! See how he approves.
And the trams at a junction don't leave the grooves.
THE TERRACES OF THE POOR PEOPLE
Looked at Autumn Street, Winter Street, Summer Street,
Spring Street. In Grandad's desk there were letter-racks
all in rows. You put this behind that, all neat.
So were the people in the backyards. The doors
like the cubby-holes, shut away the tacks,
tags, paper-clips, sealing-wax, in little stores
where they looked very tidy and you knew where
if, say, you should need them, they were to be seen.
They were numbered for postmen. And the street there
was cobbles, all stuck like stamps, tar in between.
Was so jolty, but lasted. In a black box
there were pennies in rooms, and fastened with locks.
ROUND AND ROUND
Lee Lane, Winter Hey Lane, Chorley New Road — round,
round the triangle went the lads and lasses
on a Sunday night. That they should be homebound
was the wish. 'It's disgraceful! ‚— the Brylcreemed hair,
the mascara'd eyes! Nothing to do! Masses
of time they have to do it in!' A thoroughfare
that went round itself, round and round. Doors were shut;
gates were fastened. The triangle went somewhere
safer. Find one to hold or be held by, but
never open the door where you hug. In there
they don't want you. Though they all say they do,
why is it that the houses are made for two?
THE HORSE-TROUGH
You'd see up at the Crown a horse-trough, a round
one with a tall lamp that rose from the middle.
It had feet like the horses', flat on the ground.
You could imagine some wizard had turned an
old horse into the trough, an immortal
life quenching thirst. From a brass spout water ran
all the time so the drink would be fresh, but some
people had thrown fag ends and Woodbine packets
and spent matches in, floating around like scum.
Wasn't a litter-bin. All those nasty bits,
they would get into their mouths. You couldn't say 'Wo!'
Seemed so sad for the horses: they couldn't know.
IMPORTANT MEN
There was Councillor Carr, Father Moylan and
Councillor Kilcoyne. They were 'important' men.
They were 'up there'. I wondered about this grand
'up there' where talking and orders were going
on. Where was it? Was it some place out of my ken
that had been there before somehow, and knowing
what it was, where it was, let you in, gave you
special, impressive, frightening looks. Kevin
Kilcoyne's father would smile at you, but you knew
he was not being himself. Like a horse in
a milk-float, he was quiet, but you could tell by
the way everyone looked at him. I was shy.
LORD DERBY
By the Public Hall crowded important men.
Watch-chains made two gold loops on their waistcoats.
Their gold spectacles flashed in the sunlight when
up at the door Lord Derby appeared, collar
points so sharp, and so sharp his creases. Was votes
he was wanting for somebody. Was fatter
than the others and hadn't much hair. You might
think he was only a butcher or baker,
but you couldn't: to be a fine lord, was right
being so fat, with his bald head shinier
than his top hat. You had to stare too, to be
specially quiet, like everyone else, you see.
HIGH COLLARS
Mr. Baldwin and Grandad wore high collars,
starched stiff and white with a tie tied, just so, round
the high cylinder. Doctors, lawyers, scholars,
business-men, they wore them. Daddy didn't. His
were turned down and were coloured. And I found
what I disliked very much with the bosses'
collars, stuck up so straight, were the two little
points like two triangles turned down, or like some
kind of scraper or blade, a doctor's scalpel
ready to cut you open or catch your thumb,
like a sword that they wore, a sort of totem.
I was glad that my daddy's wasn't like them.
SHOPS
All the shops made such different rooms. The old
greengrocer's big empty room with no pictures,
dim and dusty, it made green apples, gold
oranges, glow in the flashes of sunshine
from the door. And the hot smells in the baker's
went with the stone wall of loaves, and the glass shrine
of the cakes. In the Maypole Dairy the tiles
gleamed with their cleanness saying butter was pure
and the cheese, cut with wire. In keen-smelling piles
newspapers, comics hanging up as a lure
turned a room to an attic. Was like a fair,
the booths showing things precious, holy and rare.
TUBAL
The Co-op was a big shop all on its own,
Tubal the manager. He was tall and thin,
foxy-faced, and he ruled, a king on a throne,
all the Co-op customers. His apron down
to his polished black shoes, with never a grin,
always a scowl. He would speak sharply and frown
as if buying was something you had to do
well, as if you'd got it wrong already and
were now wasting his time, as if he best knew
what you should buy and what you should say. He'd stand,
tapping fingers, tut-tutting. Daddy would say,
though, you couldn't complain, for 'it was his way'.
THE POSH GROCER'S
The posh grocer's was all panelled gold and green,
curly with scrolls like the side of a tram. Smelt
of strong cheese, ham and coffee just milled. So keen,
quick and polite the grocer, ready to please,
to go patting the butter for you, it felt
just as though he was your servant. Cut the cheese
with a wire, seemed to know just how much. But what
really did fascinate me were the money
wires that spread overhead. In a little pot
coins would go clocking; he'd pull down a funny
handle. Swish! they had gone to a booth up there
as if money was stored up high in the air.
SAMMY MARSDEN
Sammy Marsden was Fred Astaire in Horwich,
brylcreemed hair, black and swept back, parted in two,
with Fred's sharp nose and sharp chin, and the clothes which
suited the part. Deft as a compère, he was sought
out as master of ceremonies, in new-
spatted shoes, elegant tails, dapper and faultless.
Witty his jokes, as bright as the footlights, he
knew what drama and timing were. Serious,
though, in the matter of young folk bored, flighty,
traipsing through the streets like flotsam and jetsam,
and he set up a club to occupy them.
MR. ABBOTT'S
When you went into Mr. Abbott's shop, it
felt like a church or confessional. Polished
woods like walnut, mahogany, were all lit
over with window reflections. Gramophones,
cupboard radiograms, wirelesses varnished
smooth to a marble gloss, stood round like headstones.
Purple curtains on rings halved the shop windows.
There stood in racks all behind him the unplayed
records, trim in their unwrinkled sleeves, echoes
silent in black tracks, both the plum-label grade
and the nine-and-six red, and none he could loan.
Something holy about 'to buy' and 'to own'.
MR. ABBOTT AND SIBELIUS
Was a gramophone record concert. We all
brought along records to play and said a few
words before they were played through. There in the hall,
driven there specially, a new radiogram
through the kindness of Mr. Abbott, who knew
people would buy more. And there was such a wham
in the watts it was like a real orchestra.
Robert played Bach, as a public schoolboy should;
me — Sibelius Two. There was such anger,
though at once — Mr. Abbott said that he could
not abide such a row! How could people hear
such a din! But I bought it from him last year.
THE DICKENS MAN
A man came who read Dickens. At a table,
make-up in front of him, he would talk about
things in Dickens's life, while he was able,
glancing from time to time in a looking-glass,
to transform his face slowly, with stretch and pout,
dabbing on colours, sticking on hair, to pass
for the character — Trotty Veck, Sam Weller,
Magwitch or Mr. Jingle. Sometimes he'd play
two folk at once. Was strange it didn't matter
all of us saw him make-up, clip the pince-nez
on his nose, pat moustache into place. We sat
there with someone who had not been doing that.
THE PONY-TRAP
She would come in a pony-trap to shop in
Horwich, her hat all piled up like a flaky
cake. She'd leave the trap standing. It had large twin
wheels with their spokes outlined in red like fairground
things. The seats in a little box, all quaky
'cause of the springs, all smooth-varnished and brassbound
like a treasure chest only for rich people.
There was the pony, too, quietly waiting for
her who owned it, not us. But it was evil
envying someone. To have a pony draw
you about, though! I'd look in its eyes to see
if it could look at me ever and know me.
THE WOMAN IN SLACKS
Wasn't right when you saw a woman in 'slacks'.
Different from trousers anyway, much too tight —
when you're wearing your pants, you want to relax.
Women wear skirts. They're used to the cold even
if it blows right up their legs to the top. You might
think in the street there's a man, who could quieten
a horse, help move a car, but you'd be bothered
finding she wasn't. And they walked funny too.
Just pretending to be what they weren't. 'Forward'
Mammy would call her. 'She had it all on view,
showing all that she'd got.' Skirts were better, then.
They had 'got' so much more to attract the men.
'COMMON'
There was something called 'common' people could be.
I found it puzzling. All people were common,
for it meant you had lots of something to see,
daisies or buttercups. But Mammy used it
of some cotton-mill girls who put on crimson
lipstick, had sharp noses, and went out in
split skirts and high heels, who talked in loud Lancashire
voices and laughed in shrieks. It was something to
do with wearing bright colours on your jumper,
which they wore tight, going down the avenue
singing Gracie Fields' latest. Funny label.
To be different from 'common' was to be 'special'.
CLOGS
Lots of mill-girls wore clogs. They came down the street,
some with their hair all in curlers tight like snails,
a V-nick in the top lip's lipstick, their feet
knocking and clocking, except when they giggled
standing still, bending forward, shrieked at some male's
silliness whispered about. And they wiggled
cigarettes, winking eyes against the smoke. Those
clogs were like cows' horns somehow or pigs' snouts, black,
hard and nailed up with tacks. Wondered how their toes
felt inside them. When you heard them go clack-
clack-clack, sounded like coconuts on a block
Was a noise of the day as sure as a clock.
THE GO-CART RIDERS
There were boys who made go-carts, just a few planks.
four wheels, the front ones swivelling, the whole thing
in the shape of a capital I. 'No thanks!'
Daddy said when I asked him to make me one.
'Oh, why not?' Then I heard about them crashing
right against walls, overturning. Was no fun
ending up with 'concussion' as one boy did.
But they were like a toboggan in summer.
You'd see boys down the clough bounce, swing round and skid,
showing off skill, their feet as their brakes, helter-
skelter down through the dust. It was a toss-up
to go risking 'concussion' like a grown-up.
ECHOES IN BUILDINGS
In the barracks in Horwich, long corridors,
narrow with painted brick walls and a rising
cement floor, used to echo so much. Your roars
could come roaring again so loud that your lungs
would vibrate with a noise specially surprising
since it came from you own mouth, as if your tongue's
power wasn't controlled but could grow giant,
so big it shouted at you. There were places
in the church where a whisper, almost silent,
crept round the walls, and there might be red faces
if you heard a confession. Watch with your voice —
what you say can't be just a matter of choice.
PARLOURS
I found parlours for playing such cold places.
All right at Christmas with a big fire, lights on
the piano and people singing, faces
round like lanterns all bright, but on afternoons,
the piano a coffin, icy the swan
made out of pot, and the best knives, the best spoons,
laid to freeze in blue graves, and lace like white frost,
pictures of solemn faces drowned under glass,
and the icicle trinkets of such great cost
kept inside cabinets, and Indian brass
trays that stole heat from your fingers. How can you play
in a place where all things must stay as they stay?
GREENHOUSES
There were people had greenhouses. Inside grew
things like tomatoes with a tropical tang,
for your hands would smell afterwards. The plants knew
though they said nothing, that that hot and damp air
was so good for them. Made the garden fork twang
tapping it, looked close at spiders crouching there
inside caves made of net. Lovely to be dry
when on the panes rain shot its pellets, leaving
little circles like moon craters with an eye
in the middle. Some green mould went weaving
up the windows, aquarium-dim. Was a treat,
but you couldn't stay very long in that heat.
BUCHANAN'S
Buchanan's had a high ceiling, all the walls
drawers: their labels showed all the types of screw,
nut, and nail. And on neat racks, punches, bradawls,
drills in all sizes set out like a dentist's,
and from sword-fish swords in a museum you
could pick a saw, any shape. An organist's
nightmare, bolts fixed in rows, some fat as thumbs, some
thin as wire. Pliers flew like swans. There were tubs
of thick putty, and paint, each a coloured drum.
Quiet assistants in long coats like a club's
servants fetched exactly the thing. A few bob
would recruit nature, with the tool for the job.
AT THE CHEMIST'S
Would buy saltpetre, iron filings, copper
sulphate and sulphur at the chemist's. You'd make
your own gunpowder. His flasks, each a whopper,
filled up his window, full of liquids like inks,
blue, green, crimson, and bright purple, really fake
chemicals, but I'd pretend that they weren't. Stinks
of strange molecules there in his shop. Your nose
knew how to turn them to smells, but you didn't.
You were ignorant. It wasn't you that chose
how your nose did it. Bad-egg smell or fragrant,
had to learn what those tarnished gold labels said
before all in the world went into your head.
THE REAL SHOP
Frank Hart's, that was the real shop where you could buy
Hornby trains, Dinky Toys, all the Meccano
cars and planes. As the agent, he could supply
anything there in the De Luxe Catalogue,
all those battleships (turning guns, torpedo-
launchers), each strut, plate, axle, pulley and cog
in Meccano parts, locomotives shining
bright in enamel, as big as Daddy's arm,
forty different wagons. Would go pining
there at his shop-window, so under the charm
because Alec had got this, John had got that —
so I knew they were things for me to stare at.
FISH AND CHIPS
When a Sunday'd been long and boring and cold,
Mammy'd suggest fish and chips. Was a cold walk
to the shop at the corner that always sold
peas as well. 'Peas and fish twice!' people would
say, all crowded inside, noisy, full of talk,
sudden harsh frizzings when new chips went in. Could
watch him catching the chips in nets for a test,
closing the hood like a metal piano,
see your face in the fancy mirror. Was best
shaking the salt and the vinegar. All aglow
we would take them back home, and the cold weather
was forgotten as we ate them together.
FERRANTI'S
The Ferranti ice-cream van was a little
fair all on wheels, painted with wavy ribbons,
flowers, curly leaves, each a wrought-iron spiral,
coloured in primary red, yellow and blue
with some gold on the scrolls, and silky pennons
flying at corners. His nodding hand-bell drew
all the children from out of the houses. It
couldn't be school's bell at a weekend, not down
our Vale Avenue. Could have raspberry split,
choc ices, cornets and wafers. Shop in town
full of tubs full of colours. 'All made locally.'
So in Horwich we'd something of Italy.
THE TEMPERANCE BAR
Was a 'temperance bar' in Winter Hey lane,
down a dip in the pavement, a shrunken
sort of shop, and, if you wanted 'to abstain',
there you would go for a drink. It was tiny
like the Tailor Of Gloucester's shop, a sunken
ceiling and only six feet of space. Shiny,
bulgy pottery barrels were labelled so you
could look about for the best. Sars'parilla
was my favourite drink. Was a lovely brew,
fizzy and fresh. For just twopence he'd fill a
big glass right to the top, that you'd leave upon
the high 'bar' when the twopence and drink were gone.
GOING TO THE BARBER'S
Had my hair cut at Mr. Purchase's. His
name was like scissors going 'Cher-cher!' His pole
didn't turn round — the other barber's would whiz
round just as if it was running up into
itself. Some boys would say barbers kept a bowl
specially for blood in case the scissors went through
or the razor slipped cutting your ear away.
That's what the red was for. I thought it was odd
Mr. Purchase had no bowl, only a tray
full of sawdust for spitting. Sweeney Todd
made meat pies of his customers. But I'd smile
at my barber: I could keep still for a while.
ABJECTS *
In the barber's was sawdust in a spittoon.
Spit wasn't nice. Didn't want to look at it.
Only nasty boys spat. With a cold you soon
knew that your nose was running. Hadn't to
pick it. They did — you'd see them. In your pocket
you had a hankie for that. A smeary glue
it was like. Then that orangey earwax. Why
ever did God make bodies that leaked like that?
What you saw in the lavatory, just your eye
saw it in private. 'Vulgar' boys ,when they spat,
were reminding you we didn't know about
what was us and what wasn't when it came out.
* See Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982).
THE COAL HORSES
There were stables for horses behind the Post
Office — the coal merchant kept his big black shires
there inside the high half-doors, so high the most
I could do, standing on my toes, was to touch the top.
The huge beasts were so quiet, though bright sparkfires
came from their hammer hooves. It was not 'clop-clop'
when they stepped, but 'clang-clang!' Could hear the harness
clink to their bunching muscles, the iron-bound fellies
grinding hard over cobbles, their heaving buttress-
chests drawing coal-tons like feathers; their bellies
had thick eskers of veins. Stepped out of legend.
Was no wonder that they were badged, be-ribboned.
HIGH FREQUENCIES
When the street-sweepers came, they used very stiff
brushes with springy bristles. As soon as they
started, I'd run away. That noise of 'Biff! Biff!
Biff!' had most terrible shrieks in it, like whips
made of wire, of pins scratching a glaze away,
clawing its noise in my ears like tearing strips
of some coarse metal canvas, harshness high-pitched,
piercing, unbearable. I feared the men who
meant no harm, didn't know what they did. Ears itched,
rang, and were deaf from this random attack through
and through me. See that brush? — its bristles are hard —
I now use it to brush around my own yard.
THE GALE
Couldn't ride up Crown Lane one day. A great gale
roared in the trees on the clough, and tore away
all our voices. Above we saw branches flail
to get back to the sky. Below on the road
there were bunches of green just as if today
turned into Christmas, all shifting about, towed
by the wind. Up by Lever Park Avenue
grass bent all sideways like weed in a wild tide;
a big bough and its splinters lay all askew
over the pavement. The rough clouds seemd to ride
so fast it was the Pike that was flying on
somewhere, rushing through shires where the sunlight shone.
LATE AFTERNOON SUN
On some late afternoons the sun was golden.
Wonderful light, that could make Pickup's brick wall,
prison-high, be the bulwark of some eastern
fortress, so when Tubal walked by, stiff and intent,
on his way to the shop, he was in Nepal,
diplomat-visitor at some court event,
and the milk-van a palanquin, and cars magic
chariots. Saw the bare croft on the other
side a desert with wadis, Aramaic
waste ,where long shadows raked the dusty ochre
of the dunes. I was riding a camel to
the oasis, the sky an amazing blue.
SUNSET IN ANCIENT GREECE
Don't know why a warm sunset became Ancient
Greek. Had been reading about the Trojan War
in a wonderful story-book, a pageant
magic with battles and gods, with C. Walter
Hodges' drawings, where helmeted warrior,
beautiful goddess, monstrous serpent, altar
of high sacrifice took me into a land
full of heroic excitements. What reason,
then, made bronzing, warm sunset light, that broad, grand
lustre, make Horwich Ancient Greece? What season
in what world made that amber Greek? Seemed so proud,
its intensity set against darkest cloud.
SUNSETS
There'd be sunsets sometimes so fine you had to
say there were palaces in the sky, with great
parks round them and lakes. We could only view
them from a distance as but painted tableaux —
arbours, fountains, all out of reach. Beyond were strait,
headland and island, gold archipelago
that stretched to infinity, all glowing,
changing their hues so slowly you couldn't tell
till a second look; as stealthy as time, growing
fainter and fainter. If only one could dwell
there, but yet that was dream. No point in regret.
After all, it was still Horwich's sunset.
THE SPECIAL SUNDAY MORNING
In my memory was a special Sunday
morning, but which one? or only one ? Was cold,
with high clouds but no sun and no wind, a gray
day, but so open and calm, I must have been
up at Wallsuches somewhere 'cause there are old
stone walls about. I see so far in the clean
air. I hear all the bells spaced in the valley,
loud near, soft distant, getting in time and out,
and I breathe in the coolness that is healthy
still, though it isn't here now. I'm left in doubt
about why — not a birthday, not a party —
but it made me feel wonderfully happy.
A COBBLED STREET AT SUNRISE
Was a Sunday again. A low morning sun
streaks all across the cobbles of a street — don't
know which — dead straight along from the horizon.
See all the ups-and-downs shadowed so sharply
that you don't notice when it's full day and won't
know till your bike bumps you. The street is empty.
All the cobbles are made of amber, copper,
old gold, and topaz, and the black in between
is so black. Even rubbish in the gutter
burns at its edge with light. Took it as a scene
in the world after all the people had gone.
No more walking or playing, although the sun shone.
AN ACCIDENT
"Let's cross over," I said, but somebody said
no, or they didn't hear, so I went along
with them, keeping to Uncle John's side instead.
Shorter to take the inside of the corner
down the hill. In the sun, we moved with the throng
scattering out of the Palace Cinema.
At the bend there came sudden a thunderous
noise with an earthquake felt through our feet.
There the lorry directly across from us,
its wheels, its dusty underside, from the street
upraised, all the stone cobbles, its load, volleyed
at the wall where the folk had been packed solid.
THE BOLTON WANDERERS DISASTER*
Took a Saturday train to Manchester. Through
Bolton the train rose high, the Irwell valley
there below, so we saw over houses, drew
by the great stadium. Was a fearful sight,
a vast saucer of faces beyond tally,
crammed to the sky, livid pink in the sunlight.
Seemed so horridly living, a monstrous sponge,
coral, or termites' nest, busy with its one
concern, rife with a huge desire. It would lunge,
roar, sway and hiss, drag you with it. Was no fun,
I thought, hating all crowds. Have to fight for breath.
And that afternoon, thirty were crushed to death.
*Burnden Park ground, March 9th, 1946
LESSONS IN CO-OPERATION
At the Children's Co-op before the songs and
games, the rehearsals, we had sort of lessons.
They were all about long ago when a band
of very businesslike 'pioneers' met up
in a farmhouse called 'Jumbo' near Middleton's
church. By the gardens and fruit-trees set up
the new C.W.S. The ladies who taught
us, they were keen and their eyes shone. It puzzled
me. I wondered just how what they sold and bought
made them like nuns. And then how the men struggled —
you would think they were martyrs in God's own task.
How could shops be like church, I wanted to ask.
THE HORWICH R.M.I. BAND
You'd see bandsmen all dressed up like pantomime
soldiers, with double silk lines down their trousers,
with their too-big peaked caps, marching in time,
strict to their music stuck up on little cards
clipped in holders the shape of a lyre, corners
rounded like playing-cards. Ruritanian guards
of the tunes from the cornets, euphoniums,
trumpets, trombones, with the bass-drummer pounding
thumps, alternately twirling, the kettledrums'
sticks with their bouncing and burring, all sounding
what they stared at so hard, taking no notice
of us or the procession they led, so soundless.
BRASS BAND MARCHING
At the front of processions the brass band marched,
all in their gilded purple uniforms, grim
hot commissionaires, red faces above starched
collars, all puffing like steam engines. Trombones
like giant paperclips, cornet-players with prim
mouths all pursed up; and trumpets like ice-cream cones;
and the tubas like huge whelks; and the big drum
blank as the moon with the drummer leaning back
with his drumsticks a-bounce with fee-fi-fo-fum.
Working so hard to inspire us, keeping track
of the music. As if you were to unmask
Punch-and-Judy men all busy at their task.
THE BIG HOUSES ON THE CHORLEY NEW ROAD
At one end of the Chorley New Road, Watts Street,
Stephenson Street, Brunel Street: at the other,
the big houses of Bolton, their gardens neat,
Merricourt, Heaton Grange, Arden Lea, Hurst Bank,
with their wide curving driveways, so smooth under
shady old beech trees. We had cobbles and blank
walls, except for the painted posters. Leaded
windows, geraniums in boxes, wrought-iron gates,
and a shiny big car you saw as you headed
out of the big town. Mammy said that 'their rates
must be huge.' Those mysterious people could pay.
They would never come down to our end to play.
THE PAINTS AT WINDER'S
Went to Bolton to Winder's for our poster
paints. It was wonderful seeing the rainbow
hues in pots with their careful names, the water-
colours all wrapped up like toffees, the tubes all
pumped up with oil-paint. Were set out in a row,
banded like soldiers. Could only get a small
number. Mammy said mixing gave you other
colours. Was like looking at piano keys
while you thought of the music. You made colour
turn into pictures. Or at letters you squeeze
into words. Thought of those apes typing Shakespeare's
plays at last, whereas art is made inside years.
THE SAFETY-CURTAIN
When you went to the Grand Theatre down in
Bolton, the safety-curtain was a picture.
Was a street corner. Wouldn't, though, imagine
one that was really like that. 'Folds Road' met 'Crown
Street', and a passing tram was going to hit a
lorry head on. There was no one in the town
except six sandwich-men, all facing this way.
There was a van parked with no one in it right
where it shouldn't. What sort of peculiar day
was it? — with no one around, no one who might
read the posters, advertisements everywhere,
on two zeppelins, too! It gave you a scare.
MAX MILLER
At the Grand we saw Max Miller, the Cheeky
Chappie. His hat was like Robin Hood's, but white,
and he wore such a flowery suit, freaky
greenish chrysanthemums, just like wallpaper.
And before every joke, as if someone might
catch him and stop him, as if to escape a
pack of teachers or bobbies, he would look right
out in the wings and then left, and then beckon
us to come up much closer so that he might
tell us his secret, share it with us. 'Listen! —
No, no, listen! ' They laughed before they had heard.
But he never would say exactly the word.
SEEING FACES
All the lorries and trams and cars had funny
faces. The steam-lorries the bleachworks used had cheeks
just like Oliver Hardy's, and the heavy
ones had big noses and spectacles. Racing
cars had goggles, and noses like eagles' beaks.
At the Crown you saw Ribble buses facing
you with monocles on and big moustaches,
looking like C. B. Cochran, and the Austin
Seven wore a cloth cap. And a tram's lurches,
screeches and grindings seemed to come from a thin
spinster, tall with false teeth. Faces everywhere.
Thought, if I were a cat, would I see cats everywhere?
THE TRAM INSPECTOR
Didn't like the idea of inspectors. On
trams there was one, very tall, with eyes and nose
like George Sanders. The big neb of his cap shone
(he must have polished it), and he wore better
clothes than drivers, conductors. And when he rose
up from the road, taking out his black clipper,
I would search for my ticket, but wonder why,
since I'd been honest, anyone would clip mine.
To inspect me, suspect me, seemed wrong. Oh, I
knew that he really was checking for a sign
of the cheats, but he shouldn't inspect me when
I had paid like a true, honest citizen.
THE ATHERTON TROLLEY-BUSES
If you wanted to go to Atherton, you
went on a trolley-bus, with an electric
motor. None of the grinding of a tram: flew
smoothly along. None of the noise from the geared
old bus: instead, a soft whirring whine, a slick,
gentle up-powering as the driver steered
under the wires where the secret energy hid.
Wide and bright-windowed, so comfy and quiet,
they would move like a barge and would never skid.
Pushed with a giant hand, a magic carpet,
but all solid and massive, with your consent.
Would be always safe, however fast you went.
THE WORKERS
The procession at seven I never saw
'cept on some holidays, but when the hooter
went at half past five, as to a daily law,
workers would stream from the Works over the Bridge,
in their dirty blue overalls, from paper
mill and bleach-works, reduced to an average
man with white eyes and blackened face, and quietened,
slowed down and dulled by the demand to repeat
action, lodged in a banging, dusty, darkened
nave, with the soot-streaked north-lights and cold concrete
floor. I'd watch them go by, an exhausted host,
but a grammar-school boy got a better post.
IN THE BOMB-SHELTER
Must have been one time I was on holiday
(grammar-school closed, but the elementary
schools still open). The sirens went. Had to stay
there at the bend of Queen Street and go down in
the new trenches they'd dug, with the nursery-
school and St. Catherine's. What a happy din
there was! Everyone talking! An adventure
here for us all, deep down in the fresh-smelling
clay, so snug as we sat in a real bunker
safe from the bombs, never for a blink dwelling
on any thought of what could happen above us,
not a thought either of those that might love us.
BUYING THE SPITFIRE
One year Horwich was saving for a Spitfire.
Five thousand pounds it cost. The Council had a
big thermometer stuck up high to inspire
us, at the top of Winter Hey Lane. You saw
the red line creeping up like on a ladder
past the one thousand, the two, so as to draw
in more money from raffle and jumble sale.
Suddenly, though, some rich man gave the whole sum,
the full five thousand. He'd made us all fail,
though. Saw the red go to the top. Momentum
seemed lost. A blue line, half way, looked feebler.
Was as if we were doing it twice over.
AIR RAID ON MANCHESTER
The explosions of flak were like sun-sparkles
played in slow motion, dying planets, soundless
eighteen miles away, pinning the sky, battles
distance distilled to mere points. The low sky there
was inflamed. Searchlight beams, with eyeblink swiftness,
waved as vast windscreen-wipers, their being, air,
probing clouds with glows leaping invisibly
one to another. Amazing sight, but I
couldn't see it as fireworks. Was terribly
strange that you wanted, just as if it was Guy
Fawkes Night then, to cry 'Oooh! like when rockets blew
up, but knew that the fight had to do with you.
AFTER THE AIR RAID ON MANCHESTER
When we drove into Manchester, it was early
morning, everything still except the 'Beetle'
(the car buzzed so loud). First Aid would let Daddy
sometimes bring special medicine and he took
me along with him. I would see a steeple
far off, so sharp, all black one side it would look
like the hat of a giant jester or witch-
doctor, but one thing was sure: without moving
it would turn all the corners, there's be no hitch,
sensing its way blindly, it would be finding
out my hiding place, knowing me so afraid
of the ruin and blood of the German raid.
AFTER THE AIR RAID ON MANCHESTER (II)
There were windowless walls like broken kitchen
graters or punched bus tickets. How could a wall
of a building much finer than any in
Horwich be like them? How could these heaps of brick,
plaster, snapped timber, torn wallpaper, wire, all
be like the Vale House fire? Just an electric
spark caused that, the same smoking heaps, the same
charred beams, as if a butcher had chopped them criss-
cross, the same bonfire smell. And who was to blame?
Why should a big city be smashed up like this?
What had caused it in people? What a mystery!
Could detectives find clues back in history?
THE MATILDA TANK
Had seen marks on the cobbles on Chorley New
Road, lines like zip-fasteners, in dusty white.
There it was plain, a tank, making a tattoo,
grittings and growlings, in front of the Picture
House but not now on Movietone News, but right
there by the pub, huge in grey iron thicker
than elephants' hide, with a beak like some
squat pterodactyl, dinosaur-grinding down
from the Bridge. How could traffic-lights overcome
something like that? The driver looked like a clown
with his head in its belly, guiding its treading,
but it still seemed to know where it was heading.
THE KING AND QUEEN'S VISIT, MAY 2ND, 1940
When the King and Queen came to Horwich (because
tanks, and not trains, were made at the Works, though
no one would ever had said so), all the school was
let out to see them on a special half-day.
and the Queen had the same hat in her trousseau,
pale blue this time, with a colourful nosegay,
and the king was all epaulettes, both waving,
smiling to one side and the other. So real
for that second you saw them. Some said, saving
money was better than having kings. To feel
that, I thought, wasn't right. Didn't mind the fuss.
We were cheering old England, and that meant us.