Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Today is Childhood Memories day

Apparently. Which seems a good enough excuse to wallow.

You know what it's like when you have something in your head that needs to come out? It won't let you go until you've written something. Even if that happens to be against your better judgement.

A few things have come together to culminate in this post - see how I'm still avoiding writing the actual post? - beginning at the weekend. That secret society meeting was really just a poems and pints evening; I'm not quite sure why those present decided it would be secret but it's quite fun belonging to a SS.

Anyway we had to take poems with us to read. All the previous P&P I've attended have involved reading our own writing so I took some of mine only to find that everyone else there had brought along Dylan Thomas, Roger McGough etc. Undeterred by being in the presence of such greatness I read a monologue and two of my own poems. I'm not a poet; I should make that clear here, although it's irrelevant to this post.

One of the two poems was having its first public reading and I was surprised at its effect on me. (Not on the audience who were polite but unenthusiastic.) So its words stayed with me.

If you recall, a couple of weeks ago I went to a funeral in which it became apparent that the deceased had been an absolute saint.

Then I received a blog visit a day or so ago from The Periodic Englishman. Being a polite sort of blogger I returned the courtesy and read several of his posts including one about his uncle in which he describes his uncle's worst qualities while qualifying it by saying that he still loved the old man.

And now it's Childhood Memories Day. You're probably meant to recall favourite toys but hey.

Bear with me (or bare if you prefer). These things will all come together any moment now.

The poem was about my mother. You can read it here if you really want to.

Now I have to go and cook tea. That's probably just as well; all this will serve as an introduction to my post proper. ("I mentioned the war once but I think I got away with it.")

4 comments:

Ole Phat Stu said...

The use of SS, presumably as an abbreviation for Secret Society, shows a lack of appreciation of recent history. However, I will give you credit for being a post WW2 child . . .

Liz Hinds said...

Today it's more likely to mean Social Security, stu.

Leslie: said...

Touching poem, Liz. My mother died just shy of 82, and I did get to see her gather my children around, but sometimes I still wonder if I really "knew" her. I'm sure you'll understand what I mean. Looking forward to the rest of your post.

CherryPie said...

Your poem is very touching.

It would have been my Dad's 80th birthday this coming Thursday. Just after his death my Mum found a hand written list next to his computer "What it means to by 80".