Poems
REMEMBERING
How I long for mixed fruit jam,
Omo and mangles
and thickly cut ham.
Beef on Sunday
with all the trimmings,
Gran's apple pie
and glass jars brimming
with pickled onions
down in the cellar,
a flat cap raised
by an elderly fellow.
The coal man coming,
roofs covered in soot,
thick white snow
trampling underfoot.
The gas meter man
leaving a divvy,
going with a basin
to the local chippy.
Pea-souper fogs
that gave us moustaches,
eggs stamped with lions
and inch-thick rashers
of fatty bacon
fried in lard,
black pudding with mustard,
beds that were hard.
Bowls of dripping,
sensible shoes,
a clip round the ear
for being rude.
Cow-heel and tripe,
brown bread and hens,
goldfish in plastic
from rag and bone men.
All fading now in the mists of time
but still they exist
in the back of my mind.
by Beryl Lomas