Bedtime Stories (for David)

This was written for my grandson David, born 31-Dec-2014 and published to celebrate his 3rd birthday.

Bedtime Stories

He really likes his post-bath bedtime stories
before he shuts his eyes
My grandson and I, in the big soft bed
His face bright with wonder
as we rediscover the delights
of the tale of the three little pigs
and the Big Bad Wolf
of whom he, at least, does not appear to be afraid.

He really likes the Big Bad Wolf;
He mimes the hurricane destruction
of the inferior domiciles
of the pathetic younger pigs;
the straw and the wood no match
for David's lupine huffing.

He laughs at the wolf's scorched arse
as the eldest pig turns the tables
His brain is alive with words
that dance around the illustrations.

On we move to the three skeletons
whose voices I must mimic, and so does he
Their adventures in the night
(scaring the town)
like an endless loop
but this does not concern David.

He really likes the skeletons;
he appreciates the certainties of their routine
and he predicts the next page
with unerring accuracy;
How weird would it be if, one night,
the skeletons stayed at home?

Finally the fairy who's hard of hearing.
There's a moral to this one
that is presently lost on the boy
but he really likes the rhymes;
carrot,parrot;
mouse,louse;
cat,bat;
Keep with those rhymes son,
keep with the rhythm of words;
Let them seep into your senses
and chant them to Morpheus;
the skeletons, the wolf, the pigs
and the fairy's misheard rhymes.

He really likes this, and so do I.

(c) Tim Fellows 2017


 

Ambleside

This short story was read out on Sheffield Live's Write Radio on 22nd December 2017. 

Ambleside - A ghost story for Christmas

The old man leaned on the wall and looked at the house. It was, he had to admit, not the prettiest house. It was grey in colour and looked like it should live in a black and white photograph, leaking monochromatically into the sky and trees surrounding it. There were splashes of colour and he took consolation in them - the pale green curtains, the plants in the hanging basket by the door and the yellow daffodil on the painted house name sign - "Ambleside".

The woman who now occupied the house was visible briefly through the window. She was a widow, who, despite her loneliness, seemed generally happy but today there was more of a bustle about her movement. Her activity indicated that this was the day when her grandchildren would visit her - she always put the tiny tent out in the back garden in summertime and had washed the bedding from the guest rooms. The children's arrival was bittersweet for him - it reminded him of when he had lived there as a boy. He loved that house, its strange staircase, the odd nooks and crannies to hide in, and the loft that he could climb into and listen to the creaking of its wooden floors when the wind was high. His mother, also a widow, would call him down for tea and he would climb down from the loft and scamper down the staircase following the rising scent of a stew or fresh baked bread.

He was happy with his mum and his house. He loved them both. Then he came. With his superficial charm, his flowers and chocolates, and, later, his drunken rages. Sadness rose in the man's body as his mind drifted, as it always did, to that night. To the child whose toothache was so bad he couldn't stop crying despite the shouting from the room next door. "Shut him up, Mary, before I do!" - he knew his mother would be sobbing and that made him cry more.

Shut him up. 

Suddenly there were footsteps and the door burst open - the man came in and grabbed him by the arm, dragging him from his narrow bed onto the floor. He could smell the whisky on his breath and feel the hands on his throat, tightening; he could hear the man shouting "SHUT UP!" "SHUT UP!", his mother screaming, the pain from the rotten tooth drifting away.

He had followed the man to the prison and to the hanging - before they put the hood on he knew that his killer had seen him. The terror in his eyes was more than could be explained by his imminent death. His black soul didn't linger - the trap opened and he was gone. Shut him up.

He was always sad that his mother couldn't see him - couldn't watch him growing up to be a man. She had moved away and he tried to follow but the house always drew him back. He barely left the house now, except to potter around the garden, as he was doing now. He loved this house and, as he entered what would be his ninetieth year, he wondered how much longer he would be here. He never wanted to leave - he wanted to be together with the house, forever.

Doorway

Thousands of people sleep rough in the UK and many more are dependent on hostels, shelters and temporary accommodation; most through no fault of their own. 

We are suffering from a serious shortage of social housing and a serious shortage of social responsibility. 

Doorway

The doorway is my home
wrapped against nature's bitter bite
I lie here freezing and alone
In swaddling clothes I rage against the night

I see the world pass by 
in varied states of mind they walk
briskly past, they avoid my eye
and disappear into the closing dark

They do not think that I
once had what they had, home and hearth
that has now gone, so easily 
and blamelessly I lost my own self worth

How not to feel downcast?
the ruthless wind cuts like a knife
an empty plastic cup blows past 
It is a cruel mirror of my life 

I too was thrown away
discarded like that empty cup
left to the winds of fate as they
wait for the dawn machine to sweep me up

I think - Where is the hope?
At Christmas time where is the cheer?
There is no helping hand or rope
To drag me from the slough of pain and fear

So spare a tiny thought
For those less fortunate than you
Who by the Grace of God are brought
to a shuttered door they may not walk through


(c) Tim Fellows 2017

Rising Renga

These were verses written by Fiona and me at the Renga Rising workshop at Horbury on Sunday, October 1st as part of Wakefield Literary Festival. Thanks to Dave Alton for organizing.

A renga  is a form of collaberative poetry from Japan - in our case we also structured it using pairs of verses in the form

5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
7 syllables,7 syllables
5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
7 syllables,7 syllables
....

There was a theme for each section, in groups starting with a season.

SUMMER
DAYS OUT
THINGS LEFT
RIPENING

AUTUMN
CLOCKS
DRIFT
HERITAGE

WINTER
TEXTILE
LAMP
PINE

SPRING
PASSION
BLOSSOM
FUTURE

Fiona's Renga

A bright summer's day
Hover flies over water
Nothing much happens

Canal boats glide past quickly
Children run and jump and play

Troubles left at home
At home but not forgotten
Waiting to return

Flowers bursting with colour
Berries swelling with fresh juice

Berries on the trees
Waiting to ripen and fall
Food for the winter

Time passes so quickly now
Racing onward towards death

Where does it all go
Health, hope, happiness, future
All merge into one

What has passed still has meaning

To make our future better

The sun is setting
Nights are long and days are short
Waiting for the dawn

Warm covers to keep me snug
Soft on my skin and cosy

The light is so dim
I light another candle
It gives light and heat

The pine stands in the corner

Decorated with panache

Days lengthen slowly
new life appears all around
lambs gambol with joy

New life, new hopes, new future!
Will tomorrow bring more joy?

The blossom appears
Growing daily on the boughs
Promises to come

What will happen tomorrow?
Who can tell? I wait in hope.

Fiona also wrote an accidental haiku for "Pine"

The tree smells divine
The heat from the small candles
Enhance its presence

Tim's Renga

On the sandy beach
Windy, cold, cheerless skies
Wish we were in Spain

Stately homes, gardens so trim
Moors, beaches, our National Trust

Brollies, sticks, hats and
teeth, even false legs are left
on the Underground

Banana, what is your choice?
Green, yellow or spotted brown?

Leaves, golden soft browns
Blown like the sad, lost spirits
of fallen soldiers

Time, ticking like an endless
sad cricket, above the fire;

They blocked it up, in
nineteen eighty five - our escape;
the long shallow drift.

Engine house at Pleasley Pit
Glassy walls of Hardwick Hall

Morning frost, scraping
Icy winds blown from the North
Where's the sun hiding?

From the backs of laden sheep
to our warm winter jumpers

Carol singers carry
festive illuminations
hanging from a stick

Lonely, the winter tree can
never shed its bitter spikes

New, fresh, bursting life
Hope, unchallenged in our heart
Youth will have its day

Running headlong with no fear
Love or hate, all consuming

Drooping from the branch
Its colour indescribable
It steals my vision

I am unknown, I am feared
I am inevitable.

The Miner (for my grandad Ted)

This poem is written in memory of my grandad William Edward "Ted" Fellows (1913-1978). I had the honour of reading it for the first time at the National Coal Mining Museum's commemoration event on 2nd December 2017.

Commemorative disc

"Lives lived, lives lost"

Reading of the poem

Reading the disc inscriptions

The Miner

He used to take the boy for walks
along rutted lanes;
aside thick-grassed fields.
On baked mud tracks
dappled with life and colour
yet close to the grey
man-made towers
and black hills where,
in his daily work,
he would ride the cage
into the darkest hell.
Birds identified
by their song and shape;
He knew the ground
on which we walked
and below which he toiled.
He smiles, in his head the
words and music of Handel.
His hands, holding the boy,
skilled on the trombone,
tending his greenhouse plants,
conducting the choir,
working the coal.

In giving lives and bodies

to the cause - the nation's energy

was safe in the miners' hands

yet they were so much more.

Fathers, brothers, sons, granddads -

Poets, singers, artists, craftsmen;

Hands and hearts

held in perfect time.

(c) Tim Fellows 2017

Gilbert Daykin - the miner artist

This blog entry contains my poem "A Special Light" about Gilbert Daykin, a miner who created very striking paintings of mines and colliers, perhaps the most striking being “Symbolic: the Miner Enslaved” (1938) reminiscent of images of Christ and of the chained Prometheus.

Symbolic: A Miner Enslaved (1938)

Perhaps the most poignant one for me is "The Tub: At the end of the coalface" (1934) which was painted the year before my Great Uncle Jim Hooper was killed doing exactly what this miner is doing:

The Tub: At the end of the coalface (1934)

These are in the permanent collection at the Science Museum along with several others donated by a relative in 1978.

Daykin was born in Barnsley but later moved to Derbyshire and worked in pits around the Notts/Derby border. His other work included paintings of the Welbeck Estate which brought him to the attention of the family there and helped raise his profile. He was never able to leave the mines and was in constant fear of the danger it brought - in the end this proved justified and he was killed at Warsop Colliery in December 1939.

You can read more about Gilbert Daykin here.


A Special Light

Home from the mine -
back-breaking, hard and dirty shift;
fireside tub to rinse the dust
while in your memory
the images remain
imprinted, burnt,
as the blackness is washed away.
Impatient for your paints and brushes,
memories transferred
from brain to canvas.

Yellow-white glow of lamp
shines on blackened muscle,
straining in its labour,
heavy boot on stony floor.

You, a miner, and miner's son,
spat out of school at just thirteen
imagine with both eyes and soul.
Dignitaries laud you
and a duchess receives but
you are never allowed to fly the
fearful pull of the grim black hole.

A miner enslaved but
with a burning desire for art;
bending to his work
with shovel and brush;
breathing in dust then
breathing life into
inanimate oil and colour.

As war clouds gathered and
the skies thundered above
a roof was falling below
and you, Gilbert Daykin,
would daub no more.
A special light, illuminating the
pitch-black of mining history,
dimmed that night
but the shining talent
will never be extinguished.

Gilbert Daykin 1886-1939

(c) Tim Fellows 2017

All images are owned by the Science Museum and are published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence

"Symbolic: A Miner Enslaved" at the Science Museum 

 "The Tub - at the end of the coalface" at the Science Museum