I wrote this memoir cum poem prose style for a WEA Beeston writing class I attended from 2011 until the end of 2013 in response to an exercise we were set by our tutor. It is based on memories. I did think of it until recently as a poem, now I'm not so sure. I admit to liking it, for having been inspired to write it, and for the memories it brings back.
Re-reading it after a long time, I am struck by what I now remember of the seventeen year old I then was. Joy knew me better than I knew myself and I never said. 'Awe' best describes how I felt.
I liked girls, but I held back, always waiting for permission. My distant cousin Caroline gave me permission, but family warned us off and, aged 16 and 15, we obeyed. She died of breast cancer aged just 38. We were close to the end and she used to come and stay with me and Susan after her marriage ended.
An early girlfriend told me I was 'undemonstrative' and I remember going home and looking the word up in my beloved Words dictionary.
I let another girl go for fear of being overwhelmed by my feelings for her. She didn't understand and life moved on. She went to university in Reading. Her name was Anne and she was a vicar's daughter. I wonder more with the passing of years what became of her, her life.
I was thirty-one before I got the permission I wanted, to be me, and I fell in love in a moment and made it the subject of my first poem, written a couple of days after Christmas 2010, inspired by my grand-daughters. Again, it is a memoir of sorts.
I have just helped a friend publish a collection of poems, which I will blog about on my beestonweek blog next week. They are full of memories and passion and in them I recognise something of myself.
Right now though, I leave it for you to decide, is this memoir or poem?
Memories of trollies and Joy
Re-reading it after a long time, I am struck by what I now remember of the seventeen year old I then was. Joy knew me better than I knew myself and I never said. 'Awe' best describes how I felt.
I liked girls, but I held back, always waiting for permission. My distant cousin Caroline gave me permission, but family warned us off and, aged 16 and 15, we obeyed. She died of breast cancer aged just 38. We were close to the end and she used to come and stay with me and Susan after her marriage ended.
An early girlfriend told me I was 'undemonstrative' and I remember going home and looking the word up in my beloved Words dictionary.
I let another girl go for fear of being overwhelmed by my feelings for her. She didn't understand and life moved on. She went to university in Reading. Her name was Anne and she was a vicar's daughter. I wonder more with the passing of years what became of her, her life.
I was thirty-one before I got the permission I wanted, to be me, and I fell in love in a moment and made it the subject of my first poem, written a couple of days after Christmas 2010, inspired by my grand-daughters. Again, it is a memoir of sorts.
I have just helped a friend publish a collection of poems, which I will blog about on my beestonweek blog next week. They are full of memories and passion and in them I recognise something of myself.
Right now though, I leave it for you to decide, is this memoir or poem?
Memories of trollies and Joy
Another day done
And over the road
I stand at the bus stop
With four in front
It's damp and I'm cold.
I wrap a scarf around my face,
To keep the sulphur out,
Every 3 to 4 minutes they come
Along the Harrow Road from
Paddington Green and Kensal Rise.
Then thru the February fog
Still a distance away
Pinheads of light, an indistinct shape
Enveloped in winter's dark folds
A trolleybus comes.
Embryo like, it clings to its wires
Smog yellow, dirty red
Then a surprise, it's three in a line
As they come to the Jubilee Clock
A 664 for Cricklewood, then mine…
A 662 that's Sudbury bound
5:45 and it's heaving
'Room on top. Two upstairs'
'Don't hang about'
'And you, son, inside'.
Two regulars look and nod
I see Joy in the front wedged tight
She turns and gives a little wave
Maybe a chat when we get off
I can't wait for our Wembley stop.
She's engaged
I wish it was me
We always talk
We met on the trolley
Older than me, I love her to bits.
Wet windows inside, Pearl lights
Warm bodies, Narrow seats
Grey faces, Woollen coats
Baskets and bags, where voices
And silence share the same space.
Painfully slow we glide
On and off they get at every stop
Harlesden's rush hour crowds
Craven Park 'rumbles' ahead
And then Mr. Jones.
Every time the same
'How's Pop?…'
'Tell him he owes me a pint',
Then he takes a bench to himself
And I slide in with Joy.
Small talk, shared passions
Barham Park Library
Books and museums
Past Stonebridge and Tokyngton Hill
The trolleybus goes, unnoticed by us.
Above the rooftops to our right
Wembley Stadium, all lit up tonight
We shudder to a halt
Roads and pavements overflow
A welded line of buses, cars and us.
Then an exodus above our heads
And the Trolleybus sways
To the rock of the stairs
Joy. Heaven. Puts her hand on mine
'Time for tea I think… My treat'.
'Shall we get off and walk?'
Down the trolley and off the back
'You'll break your necks one day'
We hear the clippie shout
As holding hands we jump.
In a world of our own
Shrouded by vapours which cling
We could be any High Road couple
Past the Majestic and old Town Hall
We see Lyons still open for tea.
No one we know
Joy tells me her fiancé's away
Gone home to Sunderland
'Are you expected?…
If not, come home with me'.
'I'll phone' I say. 'Nanna won't mind'
Nothing happened
It never did
But those times were special
Joy, the trolleybuses and February.
A FOOTNOTE.
Twelve months later
The trolleybuses had gone
My Nanna was dead
And Joy was married
I was there for them all.
The day Joy married
Was the only time we kissed
She squeezed my hand and said
'Next time it will be you. I promise'
We never spoke again.
There was one last glimpse of Joy
Years later on the Bakerloo Line
Our carriages stopped, side by side
I saw the wave, then her smile
And she was gone. This time forever.
Robert Howard
26 March 2011.
V3.
Written as an exercise whilst going to
a WEA Beeston Branch writing class.
