Brother (part one)

I never particularly wanted to write about the 1984-85 strike. I wasn't there. However when an idea comes, it has to be written down and this poem is the first part of a sequence, in different styles, that continues the story.The rest will be published over the coming weeks.

Brother

Brother do you remember
the childhood we shared?
In our two-up two-down terrace;
our dad, tapping out his pipe and
            mam, making chips for tea.

I loved you, brother;
your cheeky smile and hair
never in control
until mam, with a spit and a polish,
            would sort you out.

Cricket in the street -
box for stumps, broken bat
recovered from the bin
at the village club but
dad fixed it for us.
          Although you were younger

You were better than me;
it evened us out so I didn't
have to let you win
although I would have;
          I was your protector.

We were hopeless at school
regularly caned though
it never made no odds.
So at 16, down the pit,
         you followed me and dad.

Ten years passed, hard work done,
but the laughs we had, the jokes
and drunken nights at the club.
Brothers in life and
brothers in coal,
         red in blood and red in soul.

No longer sharing a bedroom;
we had our own kids and homes.
I barely remember a bad
word between us,
        we were best mates and Best Men.

In my mind, clear as day,
that moment when the Union man
told us it was on.
He was so confident that we'd win and
        We will take 'em down again!

And that was us too,
both of us, for weeks and months.
Squashed in cars, making sure
         we kept the scabs at bay.

Then, one day, when I came
to pick up you up you said,
I'm not coming today
I knew straightaway that
         something was wrong.

You wouldn't look me
in the eye. Sarah, standing
in the hall, arms round the kids.
I said "OK" and went alone.
        Day by day my suspicion grew.

I've been punched a few times
but never has it hurt as much
as when they told me
you'd gone back.
       They told me, not you.

I'd have killed you
if mam hadn't been there.
God knows what it would've done
to dad if he'd been alive.
      You were a blackleg, a scab.

On the picket line, shouting
You fucking traitors at the Judas Bus
through a sea of helmets.
That brief moment I saw you;
trying to hide your face.
       I never cry, but I cried that night.

Brother, you've been dead to me
for thirty years -
the childhood bond
was smashed apart.
Those memories must be false
        because I have no brother.

Tim Fellows 2017

Acknowledgement: "Judas Bus" is from the song by Jez Lowe.