A Favourite Poet

On the road next to Preston Station and about eight minutes from my house is a blue plaque to the poet who was born there on the 6th January 1874 and was certainly a favourite of quite a few folk. Which is a bit of an understatement as Robert Service became the highest earning poet of all time and it is claimed the most widely read poet of the Twentieth Century. A single poem ‘The Shooting of Dan McGrew’ earned him half a million pounds alone. Charles Lindbergh allowed himself a book of Service’s poems as luggage on his flight across the Atlantic in the Spirit of St Louis.

To be honest he didn’t stay in Preston long as his family moved to Scotland when he was a boy and he himself emigrated to Vancouver in 1896. He wrote ‘Here I am, a traveller – I who was destined to be a stay-at-home. By my own will I have achieved this’. It was here he would eventually launch his writing career, but not before seeking some more adventure.

Robert William Service

Robert headed to Los Angeles where he found work as a labourer, digging a mountain tunnel. He drifted from one job to the next, filling in as a saloon dishwasher, orange picker, sandwich board worker, even as a handyman in a brothel. He wandered with a rucksack and guitar in hand, a guitar given to him by the girls in the brothel, barely getting by. Once the wandering lifestyle began to lose its lustre, he returned to Vancouver.

He eventually settled down and began working for the Canadian Bank of Commerce in Victoria in 1903. He was then transferred to the Yukon Territory where he began writing poems about the Klondike Gold Rush that derived from people he met and the stories they told as well as his own treks into the wilderness.

In 1907 after having collected enough poems for a book, Service sent the poems to his father, who had emigrated to Toronto, and asked him to find a printing house so they could make it into a booklet. He enclosed a cheque to cover the costs and intended to give these booklets away to his friends in Whitehorse for Christmas. His father took the manuscript to William Briggs in Toronto, whose employees loved the book. The foreman and printers recited the ballads while they worked. A salesman read the proofs out loud as they came off the typesetting machines. An enterprising salesman sold 1700 copies in advance orders. The publisher sent Robert's cheque back to him and offered a ten percent royalty contract for the book. That was a good move as it has sold over three million copies to date.

In June 1913, he married Parisienne Germaine Bourgoin and when the First World War broke out and was refused enlistment due to varicose veins. Instead he became a war correspondent and served for 2 years as an ambulance driver on the front lines. They continued to travel and he continued to write during the interwar years.

Robert and Germaine (and cat)

At the start of the Second World War he moved his family to the safety of America’s West Coast and Hollywood had him join with other celebrities in helping the morale of troops – visiting US Army camps to recite his poems. He was also asked to play himself in the movie … The Spoilers, working alongside Marlene Dietrich and John Wayne. At the war’s end he returned to France where he enjoyed the friendship of the rich and famous. On the marriage of the Hollywood actress Grace Kelly to Prince Rainier of Monaco, Service wrote a special poem for the couple as his wedding gift.

In the Autumn of 1958 while staying at his villa in Brittany, Robert Service contracted flu and he passed away at the age of 84. His beloved wife survived him until 1989 when she died aged 102.

Service was honoured on a Canadian postage stamp in 1976, there is a mountain on the Alaska Canada Border Range named after him as well as schools bearing his name.

The Shooting of Dan McGrew

A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.

When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and the glare,
There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty, and loaded for bear.
He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength of a louse,
Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house.
There was none could place the stranger's face, though we searched ourselves for a clue;
But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew.

There's men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell;
And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell;
With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done,
As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one.
Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he'd do,
And I turned my head — and there watching him was the lady that's known as Lou.

His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze,
Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze.
The rag-time kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool,
So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool.
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands — my God! but that man could play.

Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,
And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear;
With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,
A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;
While high overhead, green, yellow and red, the North Lights swept in bars? —
Then you've a hunch what the music meant. . . hunger and night and the stars.

And hunger not of the belly kind, that's banished with bacon and beans,
But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means;
For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above;
But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowned with a woman's love —
A woman dearer than all the world, and true as Heaven is true —
(God! how ghastly she looks through her rouge, — the lady that's known as Lou.)

Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear;
But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all that it once held dear;
That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil's lie;
That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die.
'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair, and it thrilled you through and through —
"I guess I'll make it a spread misere", said Dangerous Dan McGrew.

The music almost died away ... then it burst like a pent-up flood;
And it seemed to say, "Repay, repay," and my eyes were blind with blood.
The thought came back of an ancient wrong, and it stung like a frozen lash,
And the lust awoke to kill, to kill ... then the music stopped with a crash,
And the stranger turned, and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way;
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway;
Then his lips went in in a kind of grin, and he spoke, and his voice was calm,
And "Boys," says he, "you don't know me, and none of you care a damn;
But I want to state, and my words are straight, and I'll bet my poke they're true,
That one of you is a hound of hell. . .and that one is Dan McGrew."

Then I ducked my head, and the lights went out, and two guns blazed in the dark,
And a woman screamed, and the lights went up, and two men lay stiff and stark.
Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew,
While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast of the lady that's known as Lou.

These are the simple facts of the case, and I guess I ought to know.
They say that the stranger was crazed with "hooch," and I'm not denying it's so.
I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys, but strictly between us two —
The woman that kissed him and — pinched his poke — was the lady that's known as Lou.

                                                                                                          Robert Service

Thanks for reading, Terry Q

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Trams

I was wondering how to approach the topic of Trams and at a bit of a loss (and I certainly wasn’t going to do Blackpool) when T pointed out that just down the road from me had been one of the largest manufactures of trams in the world so wouldn’t that do. She was right again.

a Dick Kerr & Co. tram (Crich Museum)

Dick Kerr & Co Works (a very brief review):
A site on the east side of Strand Road, Preston had been intermittently used for railway work since the 1840’s. In 1898 the Electric Railway and Tramway Carriage Works Ltd (ER&TCW) took over the site. This company had strong links with Dick Kerr & Co. The building of Preston Dock had involved the diversion of the river Ribble and associates of Dick Kerr & Co built the factory building which still stands on the west side of Strand Road in 1900. 

the Dick Kerr Factory, Preston

This site occupies the space between the road and the original river bank. The two sites became a major centre of tram building and electrical equipment manufacture. Dick Kerr & Co took over the West works in 1903 and ER&TCW became the United Electric Car Company in 1905.

By 1914, the company employed around 2,000 people. They produced electrical equipment for tramways and railways and built over 8,000 tramcars, for service in the UK and abroad, including to the Hong Kong Tramways and Buenos Aires tramways operated by the Anglo-Argentine Tramways Company.

1930 saw the transfer of the traction electrical work to Bradford and the closure of West works until the late 30’s. East works continued making buses and trams including a large order for Blackpool (I wasn’t going to mention the jewel of the north).

The Dick, Kerr Type tram was the classic British tram design. It was the most common tram seen on Britain's tramways until the 1950s. Many different types of the tram were designed.

Needless to say the market for trams declined and there followed a jigsaw of mergers and acquisitions before the Strand Road site was virtually closed by about 1995. Which co-incidentally was the year I moved to Preston.

It is fair to say that the Dick, Kerr & Company is now far more famous for its Ladies Football Club than for trams. The team remained in existence for over 48 years, from 1917 to 1965, playing 755 games, winning 682, drawing 39, and losing 34.

Dick Kerr women's football team

The women on the team had joined the company in 1914 to produce ammunition for the war. Although women had initially been discouraged from playing football, it was believed that such organised sporting activity would be good for morale in wartime factories.

During a period of low production at the factory in October 1917, women workers joined the apprentices in the factory yard for informal football matches during their tea and lunch breaks.

After beating the men of the factory in an informal game, the women of Dick, Kerr formed a team, under the management of an office worker. Players were paid 10 shillings a game by Dick, Kerr & Co. to cover their expenses.

During its early years, matches played for charity attracted anywhere from 4,000 to over 50,000 spectators per game. The team faced strong opposition by The Football Association (FA), who banned the women from using fields and stadiums controlled by FA-affiliated clubs for 50 years (the rule was repealed in 1971).

I seem to have wandered off to the football side of things but never mind trams have made a big comeback. Indeed I was on one this week in Birmingham and it’s fab.

a modern day Birmingham tram

I rather like this poem:

The Tram Journey

You got on the same tram
only to get off before me,
your steps were slow,
your hand shook slightly,
your gaze was lit by nostalgia…
Looking at your gentle face,
your boyish air – grey-haired! –
I saw myself there.
I wondered about your life,
I thought about our journey,
the road we were sharing
on this tram!
People got on,
People got off –
together on this same tram!
Our faces
masked our uncertainties,
only your eyes shone,
as you smiled tentatively
…then it was time,
you treated me to a last smile,
as you left your seat
and the tram continued
on its way.
                          Milena Ercolani

found at http://www.milenaercolani.blogspot.co.uk/ and translated by Pasquale Iannone and Robyn Marsack.

Thanks for reading, Terry Q.

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Journey Through Time

'Journey'

Going from one place to another physically and or within the mind.

Being taken to somewhere else, travelling in such a way where things unfold

with obstacles to overcome and surprises to be encountered.

When I was growing up a mantel clock took pride of place in our kitchen. It was plain, rather ordinary, making its voice heard by chiming at regularly intervals. The timekeeper sat on a shelf commanding attention when one walked into the room. I have no idea where it came from but for as long as I can remember it had been in our family. My sister had inherited this clock and not so long ago she carefully packed it up and sent it to me. It made its own journey being jostled and bumped about on land, then carried up and through the clouds from Seattle to the Fylde Coast. It was like Christmas when I opened up the box and carefully unwrapped it. For years it had not been in good working order and therefore I had to consider what time the clock should be permanently set until it was fixed. I found the most perfect place for it settling on a shelf in the lounge, where it again could take centre stage with hands positioned to 8:20, a time forever etched in my memory.

Mantel Time and Strike Clock (c Mid-19th Century)
Manufacturer: Jerome & Co, New Haven Connecticut

8:20 was the time I would set off for school from age six. It was a 20 minute walk that gave me my first taste of independence. Sometimes it was with friends, sometimes I took this journey alone meandering along the streets of Riverside, a National Historic Landmark that was one of the first planned communities in the United States. The town was designed by the architect Frederick Law Olmsted who designed Central Park in New York City.

Riverside Map (www.olmstedsociety.org)

I remember walking through the park with some wonderfully large trees, it was all very green. There was the red brick train station, the adventure of crossing the railway tracks sometimes waiting for the commuter train to pass and then there was the formidable Water Tower. The final destination was school. I would do this same trek home for lunch with thanks to the ever reliable timekeepers, the clock and my mother. Mom was a stickler when it came to punctuality.

Punctuality and obsessions with clocks along with the concept of time has stayed with me. I am one to arrive at an airport long before the plane is due to depart. I’ve never missed a flight in all the 25 years that I’ve been going back and forth over the pond since my move to the UK.

I’ve also experienced many other types of journeys over time, but the one that has kept me the most grounded, been a constant my entire life and has gotten me through it all, has been my creativity. Being an artist and making things has been a life-long adventure into the mind, processing information and the imagining of new worlds, new constructs both past and present. As a trained visual artist, my three-dimensional object based narrative work has offered opportunities to learn about a variety of places and themes; whilst also working with different communities, exploring a multitude of identities and in doing so becoming an integral part of many stories. It has been a way of fitting into the world, creating a sense of belonging.

It's Time Proud Preston
Assemblage (Upcycled Grandfather Clock), 2021
Image credit: Jill Reidy

The biggest surprise on my creative journey has been in writing poetry. I have always enjoyed poetry and in fact I still have the first poetry book my mother gave to me when I was 14, The Family Album of Favorite Poems edited by P. Edward Ernst. However I did very little writing before moving to the UK.

Visiting places like Dove Cottage and learning about the Romantics such as Wordsworth and Coleridge inspired me. For me, writing poetry started as a bi-product to accompany my visual artwork. Then I began to write poetry to stand on its own but shared very little with others for many years feeling I was not worthy because I had not been trained in English Literature and Creative Writing.

Slowly I began to gain enough confidence to submit poetry that resulted in a handful of minor published successes. I then got the courage to begin doing the occasional reading – this was most surprising! I continue to write as part of my creative practice. I would expect sometimes it is not the most conventional writing with influences from both American and British camps – I try to use this to my advantage but sometimes must choose and change my first choice of words depending on the situation and expected audience. I do so enjoy playing and painting with words. It is the most personal of all my creative work and always try to make time for it.

The Clock

In memory in quiet sits
upon the shelf in kitchen proud,
a wooden case with portal door
reveals the cracked discoloured face,
scratched numbers ‘round the edge, two holes
that fit a key to wind for time
spring forward hits the chime by hour
to speak for moments past, life lived
to mark once present then was lost

when now she wraps it carefully
and lays it in a cardboard box
to send it tied with strings from heart
and chart its course, an airborne path
above our homeland, childhoods held
in balance nestled in the hold
within a silver plated shell,
its engines vibrate roaring loud,
its steady wings take flight through dark

and laden Nimbus cloud, make good
on sister’s promise, she to pass
the heirloom on to me and mine,
say I to unknown pilot pray
to bring it safely on to me,
to bring it safely on.

Thank you for reading. 😀

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Bananas...what do I know about bananas ?

  Exactly as I say in the title....what do I know about bananas ? So I put on my thinking cap....
  I recall a general knowledge question from school, " How many skins does a banana have ? " Plus I recall the answer ( which still sort of puzzles me )....the answer will be at the end.
  Also I remember bananas being sort of shaped like a letter 'C' or a crescent shape, and if a child were asked to draw one that's how it would be depicted. However, they now seem to be sort of straight with a curve only at the stalk end. Is this due to an EU directive and will it now revert back now that we've left ?? After all the song said ..." I've never seen a straight banana ."
  I involved Don with this theme and got him to retell the story of going down to Preston docks, as a child, to watch the banana boats land their cargo. He said that the ships were streamlined , like clippers, to give speed through the water. You see the bananas were picked very green and took three days ( he said ) to travel from the Windward Isles. On berthing at Preston they were quickly unloaded and transported to be sold before they spoiled. Sometimes this involved unloading at nighttime depending on the tides, as they lay at anchor in the Ribble estuary for the tide to be right,
  Now, all day I've had the Harry Belafonte song about bananas going round in my head..." Hey, mister tallyman , tally me bananas. Daylight come and me wanna go home. Six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch....."  The Banana Boat Song from 1956.....Don recalls the very large bunches being unloaded. Who recalls the spiders that might be lurking in the bunches ?
  I looked up 'Yellow Banana ' and came up with a 1966 Ford Galaxy, built by Nascar and driven by Fred Lorenzen. It was bright yellow, had a dropped nose, chopped roof and raised rear. Some car ! Then on BBC 'Trainspotting ' this week they enthused about the 'banana train'..a bright yellow maintenance vehicle that inspects the tracks.
  So I don't know much about bananas...except I seldom eat them as they often give me indigestion and if I do eat one it has to be still on the green side.
  Oh ! I nearly forgot my husband made banana wine once...it never reached maturity as the bottles exploded !

               
                                                  NASCAR.".yellow banana"

   I wrote these few lines on my return from The Lakes this evening...
       
  Banana Kisses

We clasped hands, to say goodbye
And you gave me a banana kiss.
Now then, how do I best explain this...?

Well he had banana and cream as an after
And his flavoured kiss reduced us to laughter !
So never refuse a banana kiss
As the after taste is sheer bliss !

Thanks for reading my nonsense.....and the answer was  Four Skins .....seemingly when you peel it it should separate into four sections of skin.....Kath

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Thursday Knight

By Ashley Lister

For me Thursday night this week started back in October 2011, when Jane Brunning asked if the Dead Good Poets would be interested in attending a Word Soup event. For those who think it’s unreal to think of a night in January 2012 starting three months earlier I have to point out that this is winter in the north and the nights are getting longer.

My response to Jane Brunning was, ‘Sure. I’ll try anything once.’

I have a mindset to try anything once: except voting Tory or eating snails. There are some things where you only have to look at the ugly slimy little buggers to know that they’ll leave a nasty taste in your mouth.

And I also feel this way about snails.

So in October I confirmed with my fellow bloggers that we were all free to step out of our respective comfort zones and venture, as Shaun so eloquently described Preston at the start of this week, behind enemy lines.

There were further exchanges of emails. There was talk of us trying to combine our styles into one single performance piece. Lara had the genius idea of us each describing ourselves by the day of the week on which we blog. It was a shame that the idea didn’t pan out. Vicky, who is a constant explosion of ingenuity, was coming up with a rush of ideas that could have made our collective appearance seem more cohesive. Lindsay – who writes the most entertaining children’s fiction I’ve ever read – did her usual trick of containing her fears so that no one would have even guessed she was ‘bricking it.’

There were email discussions where we got snarled up in the complexities of who’d sent which message first and who’d responded privately rather than to the group and who was sticking to the theme and who was giving who a lift.

There were email discussions where the less informed amongst us discovered we were on the same bill as Jo Bell and panicked at the idea of working alongside someone so revered and respected in the world of poetry. As is turned out, the reverence for Jo Bell is deserved – she is absolutely sensational.

It’s known amongst this group that Ste Stroud does not believe in God. But surely he must believe in miracles because he was standing onstage with the rest of us on Thursday night. Given our fears and our collective organisational skills, it’s a miracle that any one of us was there.

As a side note I should say here that I’ve been immersed in writing my latest novel this last couple of months. It’s all sword and sorcery and dungeons and dragons and damsels in distress.

And alliteration.

If I’m not writing that novel I’m either researching medieval minutiae or I’m reading Game of Thrones. Occasionally I take some time away from the writing to practice wielding a broadsword. Right now I’m using the broadsword as a method for training the dogs. For anyone who is concerned about this, I can say that most of the dogs still have heads.

And I mention this connection with glamorised medieval depictions of knights because that was how I felt on Thursday night. I had ridden into Preston with my fellow knights. I was confident in the knowledge that each and every one of my colleagues was worthy to bear the arms of being a Dead Good Poet because I know each and every one of them is damned good and armed with strengths that complement the weaknesses burdening the rest of us.

And I’m now looking forward to the next time we can set out as a banner of knights ready to conquer another audience.

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