I remember the massive washing pot sizzling on the stove, steaming soap and shiny bubbles, the dolly, the washboard in the sink. Barely room for two in her tiny scullery, I gripped her apron tightly, behind the comfortable safety of her body, away from the flames flickering from washday spits. Afterwards, on the carmine step, […]
Category: Poems about Childhood and Youth
Grandmother’s Trinket Box
The tiny ballerina danced to a melody from Swan Lake played on tiny bells when you opened the lid – she posed before a mirror en pointe, like I once did. A heap of trinkets sparkled, a treasure trove to me, glittering golden brooches, dangling earrings with rubies and an emerald buckle bangle: my Sunday […]
My Grandparents’ Neighbours
They lived in an urban terrace, side by side, with a stamp-sized front garden and somewhat larger one at the back, complete with washing line from fence to fence, a coal bunker and a tool shed. It took years to grow their individuality with roses. sweet-scented stock and peonies. They called each other by their […]
Darkness of Childhood
Darkness is the murk where a monster lurks and the gulp of sky in the depths of night when no stars glisten and no moon listens to the hoot of an owl or a wild wolf’s howl. Darkness is the smother beneath the covers when you get it in your head something’s under the bed […]
Scarf Magic
My grandmother never went out without a headscarf. She had plenty of them, all neatly folded on a shelf in a low cupboard, within easy reach of a child. In other words me. The scarves were mostly chiffon and in rainbow colours. They demanded to be unfolded and swirled in the air like fairy wings. […]
To be a Child Again
Now that you are gone, I make a wish on every falling star I see (they are few and far between) to travel back in time, have you tuck me up in bed so tight, sing our favourite lullabies and then kiss me goodnight. I want to know that you’ll be there on Christmas morning […]
Necklace of Lights
An old-fashioned red London bus takes me back to childhood’s sleepy night-ride home from my grandparents house: sitting between Mum and Dad, bare legs on fuzzy seats, folding concertinas of paper tickets, hypnotised by the perfume of exhaust, rumble of engine, and the window’s black and empty gaze. I believed the stars – obscured by […]
