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The Boatman Pub (Chesterton)

I’m all of a Quiver,
I’m Down by the River.
Fat girls, Wet Dogs,
Old men wearing togs,

A glass of Rose,
The Race for Life day.
A babe in arms,
Girls with their charms,

Queer old guy in Hawaiain shirt,
Two young men with whom to flirt,
Canal boats, canoes,
Sandals for shoes,

The heady mix of Boots perfume,
A copper beach, in full bloom,
Lily pads catch my eye,
Ducks float by,
Most agreeable weather,
The Cambridge Riviera!

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Eat More Fruit

Fruit is a curious thing for sure,
Ni fish, nor fowl nor meat,
Bestowed upon the earth for us,
A healthy food to eat.

Bananas, apples, orange, pears,
Pineapples (large and small),
Grapefruits, melons, kiwis and limes,
Tescos has them all!

So put away your pots and pans,
Not necess’ry to cook,
Just peel, and cut them with a knife
And then you’ll be in luck

For anti-oxidants will course
Throughout your whole body.
And it is said that they prolong
Your life expectancy!

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Red Wine

Red, red wine
An inspiration to cogitation,
When bless-ed
Transforms to blood of Christ.
No Finer
Drink for man or king has been discovered.

Origins
Of vinification predate 4000BC.
Did Roman
Or Greek perfect the secrets of fermentation, barrel aging,
And by what
Vintners art did it become modern Bordeaux?

French breeding
Produced fine root-stocks of AOC class.
1860s
Phylloxera invasion devastated them.
American
Resistant roots were cause and solution, grafted-on.

When we send
Our children out into the world, will they return as scourge -
Saviour -
Our purgative and our salve against old age, their
Bitterness
Ripened to sweet honey like an old bottle of Sauternes.

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My Grandmother

My mother’s mother lived Coronation Street style,
Two up, two down, coal hole over cellar,
Parlour, living room, scullery, back alley,
Privy in the back yard…that was Keswick Grove.

My brother was born when I was aged seven.
They tagged him with my fathers name until we decided.
Grandmother asked me, aside, “What name do you like?”
“David”, I replied…and so he became David Alexander Sykes.

We grew up in a three bed semi with garden,
Overlooked by flats where my schoolmates lived.
An older girl spied me dancing naked on my bed,
So I curtailed that activity…that was Wyville Drive.

We lived at number ten, top of the shop,
My fathers parents, Harry and Martha, lived at number five,
We went to whist drives at my aunts house on the corner,
In 1977, we held a street party for the Queen’s silver jubilee.

Grandmother took a tumble down unlit cellar steps.
Ambulancemen packed two broken arms and one leg into balloons.
She came to live with us but missed her independence.
I carried her Saturday dinners over to her new flat by Buile Hill Park.

My mother took a job as warden of an OAP estate.
Fifty-five flats, intercom, community centre, laundry.
Some tenants became our extended family – bonus aunts and uncles,
Some had to go into care or died…that was Shelmerdine Gardens.

My grandmother spent her last years in a nursing home.
She worried about them mixing different false teeth sets.
She had long white hair, which she never cut, only brushed.
She is buried in a family plot…Peel Green cemetery.

November 2005, (S4 ward)

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