souvenir

there are a lot of souvenirs in my head
raining
the water in lines
falling
the gutters
the line going
I remember everything
an older brother
he was running

the river
boots
running through

it was raining and I remember
the planes passing over
making a boom boom boom
I’d sit on the window sill
curtains drawn in case there was a bomb
watched the children through the curtains
on rainy days

head in a fog
frustrating, confusing, annoying

it was raining and I remember the ground
wet and muddy, I had to wear Wellingtons
splash splash splash
through the
raining and I remember
the old ladies couldn’t go out
so grandma and I went to the pub
to get them guinness

your head in a fog
horrible
because you have it in your mind
but what I remember is right

remember playing by the
river and my shoes falling off and being washed
away
(I didn’t get into trouble but the other kids did)
used to love lying in bed
listening to the rain pattering the window

it was raining and I remember I was
a little devil
when I was young, when it was raining
raining in Alexandria
lightening
and then, for a month no rain
then again, rain really bad
looking out through a window
and swimming far
the fruit of the beach
catch it and eat with a spoon
faraway, the fruit
when it was raining it was raining hard
there was lovely fruit
I was mad, I was a devil swimming
taking the fruit from the rock
the fruit from the sea, rezza

raining women’s voices

branches of trees and old tyres
being washed down
even the baby’s dummy
gutters on roofs overflowing
leaves and pieces of soil run down the walls
cats and dogs
want to get inside

what does it feel like to forget?
it can be confusing, frightening
especially if you’re in the rain
like
getting off a bus
when you don’t know where you are

it was raining and I remember
Gene Kelly singing in the rain
in a musical, a great musical
Gene Kelly dancing under an umbrella as he sang
Morecambe and Wise singing
the same
funny, I remember singing at school with the other children
‘rain, rain, go away, come again another day’
raining and sunshining
I remember seeing a rainbow
remember it poured most of this summer
remember splashing the puddles when I was
a child
getting very wet
having to change and
dry in front of the fire.

Fred, Patricia, Yolanda
11 September 2009

conch

many a time tea

on blackpool beach

day trips with me dad all the time

when he had time

blowing her nose

an excuse me lost at sea

in winter gardens - indoor gardens

that’s yours my love that music

fox trot waltz

a winter garden

fresh warm

stay the day

conch

it’s just the blood in your head

you can hear it rush

to shut

it’s rough

cough it up

an excuse me

scared the life out of me change the scene

sea rough

a garden a-flower

a tower

a walk many a time

asleep

me

shells

May Cocker, Rosamund Blackham and Mary Arrandale

Stepping Hill Hospital

Coming into

Coming into hospital for the fifth time

coming into hospital for the fifth

hate to think of so many times

it’s a desperate thought

I don’t want to think it

get on and forget sadness

get on with it and remember only the

forget

who you’ve been with

where you’ve been you’re not yourself

I’m so glad that they come

I’m so glad that they come

I can’t say how often but they do

it’s action for yourself

to see someone

to see some with the same

perhaps the same difficulties

you are not alone

there are many people like you for better or worse

there are many people who like you

good people there are many

friends of myself friends of I

saw

my place

sat in my chair

saw my place sat in my chair

I can see so much from here

I wish

good

I can see I can hear.

Mary Arrandale

Stepping Hill Hospital

a locker

a locker is a sort of miniature you
haven’t much room on-ship
roll your mattress rope around
hammocks slung sausage-like

these curtain rails carrying

a coiled rope and a heaving line
panic at the dock everyone swearing
doesn’t bother me a cramped situation
eight fathoms for your morning wash

around the beds in the ward

a rough bloody outfit
you was on the frontline
some of the roughest buggers ever
I’ll take you all

remind me of

a good rough house in the pub
was a favourite occupation
thorough gentlemen
below decks

hammock rails

remind: dear me you don’t half meet characters
limbs and bits of heavy engineering
the place exploding
you hit the floor

the clews as they call em

undo them strings beg a kiss
the nurses
stealing sailors’
hatbands for ribbons


Allan Whittaker
Cherry Tree
2007

homemade scones

my daughter’s getting me somewhere
to live
it wasn’t easy
don’t fight allow it in
they’re looking after me all the time
is

a helpless helper
I see them everyday
feel I’m being looked after
my daughter will be down
one of the most important things
is

Angela Jenkins, Margaret Brown, Mary Murray
Cherry Tree
2009

wheelchair

walking

an outlook

an outlet

your body don’t dilly dally

does what you tell

marbles on the way to school

for a long way flick it through

play for each others’ cowboys and indians

late at night

in the fields around farms

make dens of

long-seeming summers

in the 1940s

the first

thing is

to keep

little things adding

to a bigger step

on the fringe of farmed fields

bounded by the Mersey

we’d walk over the iron bridge

time working horses

the river a-flooded with ducks and geese

it’s all we had

kids walking the road home

was better frittered

what’s so good about sitting down?

if you’re going

for a walk

get your shoes and

go

Group

Cherry Tree 2009

wireless

a couple of operations

the prostrate region (nothing to look forward to)

nothing doing

nothing a lot of pain

look forward to talking to your wife

don’t watch the telly

don’t listen to the wireless

nothing I spose

dropping off to sleep

the fall of a sparrow

you do nothing you’re a nothing

absolute

your best plan is to go

(there he goes, off to the toilet

had a fall)

your outlook is nil

go to sleep don’t blame ya

married 65 years

keep your hand in pleasure

hold

real things

valuable qualities

but what can she do

she can’t look after me

is there anything? nothing?

annoys me this number of ill people

their chances are not good and mine are the same

and one of them shall not fall on the ground without

my wife catches my eye

Anonymous

Cherry Tree

2007

GEORGE III

PUT THE CLOCKS BACK

it’s a timewarp here shortens the day wakeup wakeup alters everything breakfast-time doesn’t mean anything

SO THEYD WORK ASTRONOMICALLY

your jewelled stars are not allowed cut off from your possessions cant have any treasures only uniforms we are all tea-squeezers the refugee syndrome non-person things

PEOPLE SAID HE’D STOLEN TIME

things might not be worth much but it’s the story behind that gives value each of these people these subjects these things are things you can’t do without

GEORGE WENT MAD

I watch a lot of telly.

Ray West, Freida Brobart, Monica Smith

Cherry Tree 2009

photo © Lois Blackburn 2010

grit

you first come in you’re sick and that slows you can’t be mithered grit me teeth and bear it grit me teeth and keep me head down

called up 1939 went to France Dunkirk had a bad time a bad time

driven to distraction by all the waste of time getting angry doesn’t help you got to somehow slip into a lower gear get through these long days

in a truck for cover

get up when the nurses start clattering early habit of a lifetime bed late after the noise of the medicine the nurses overworking I’m surprised how cheerful they keep

tried to get in the little boat trousers round my neck and the trousers floated away

if you’ve got a decent book get what exercise you can push this wheelchair up and down

people fighting to get on the boat

that’s one thing I never do – give in

and keep a smile on the faces of the nurses

you’ve got to make your pleasure – is there anything that pleases me? - yes everything - grit me teeth and grin

E Wooley
2008

stages of grief: 1950

it’s the same a broken heart and physical pain

he died in front of me (talking one minute)
the pain in their face
you feel it
want to do
something and you can’t
the doctors said no

went cold head to toes
and you can’t get warm
when you’ve had a lovely husband
you feel it more

helping people helps
fills a gap fills what’s gone
sorry I never meant
to

break

you can let yourself go
and then you fade
sitting on ice days
not sleeping he died (talking one minute)
fade or you fight it
its always there
1950 as though it was last week as though

you cry alone
there all the time
even when I’m washing
up

a broken heart and physical pain though
everything shut
I put a bolt on the door
said: ‘There is no
good’ and then I was praying
it pulls it pulls
come back at night

come or you just
let your
self
go.

Anonymous
Cherry Tree
2009

diphtheria

the ambulance bringing
ding a ling a ling

she can remember them ringing
them bells

it was one of the common ones
the cough
a sore throat easily contracted
diphtheria scarlet fever
five years old
the cloth stretching across the wall
my father raised a blade

the ambulance bringing

take swabs
of it the children terrified
isolation hospital
their faces
thought they’d be red
scarlet fever
diphtheria

ding a ling a ling

keeping them apart
lockjaw
didn’t talk
to em too scared
peered through a washroom window
one of the kids saw me said
I won’t tell
remember

them ringing the ambulance bringing
ding a ling a ling

them bells.

Dora Boulton, Frank Bryan, Olive Wilson
Cherry Tree 2009

phantom pain

from my sketchbook, 'Phantom Pain' © Lois Blackburn 2010. (Of course the Phantom Pain in question would be felt in the missing leg, not as illustrated here- in the existing leg!)

Gammy Leg

started out cellulitis

like a rash creams and lotions managed

but you know how it goes

down the leg

on the foot

then they wanted to meet

can’t remember Christmas

my leg

could sit here and cry for eternity

wouldn’t put my leg back

occasionally I forget

roundabouts

going longer between spaces

I have phantom pains

like an itch a weird sensation

I want to scratch my foot

the foot’s not there

try to master mind over matter

can’t scratch phantom pains

sometimes it works

sometimes I still forget

Anonymous 8th July 2009