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Christine Beale
Roots
It was a warm summer’s eve
When I lay content
Under the trees soft breeze
People passed by
Oblivious to my presence
After all why should they notice me?
I’ve been here
For nearly a hundred years
For I’m the roots
That bore this tree
And now they are
Considering uprooting me
If only I could tell them
The stories I know
And I’m sure you'll agree
They have no reason
To uproot me
I can remember the wonderful seasons
The colours and the changes
All part of nature’s process
The bird’s nesting
And watching their chicks grow
And fly away to their destiny
The lambs playing in the fields
Flowers bearing their beautiful colours
And children playing happily
And yet the people have decided
This must be the end of me
When will man understand?
They cannot continue to destroy
All that’s in their pathway!
Everyone who has to cross the 'Silver Jubilee' or Runcorn/Widnes bridge on a daily basis knows what chaos can happen when the smallest thing goes wrong. Your journey can be delayed for hours.
'Silver Jubilee'
Some may say a bridge too far, when travelling this route by car.
Vehicles of many styles, nose to tail stretched out for miles.
It is their choice, but then again, this route, it can be passed by train.
It may well be a smoother ride, to help you reach the other side.
The other option, best by far, ditch the train and ditch the car.
Legs can be the quickest way, depending on the time of day.
But pity those of long ago, the only choice they had was row.
Two towns so close but yet so far, divided by the Mersey Bar.
This route from traffic's never free,
The bridge called 'Silver Jubilee'.
The filling in of Runcorn locks is something I recall vividly with sadness; playing there as a child was a great adventure. After tracing the route of the locks down to Weston Point I composed 'Top Locks'.
Top Locks
Old Bridge marks the spot
where they chopped them off
- the locks -
water, gates, the lot.
From Old Bridge I suss the scar,
wide, deep, zigzagging downhill
- bloody, unhealed -
yet pining, itching.
From this humpbacked gravestone
I count the flight’s remains
- fifteen levels-
biggest of them all.
Hang on! What’s all this?
Yes, four, five salters
- gypsy green, red -
puffing up for the drop.
And old Conker Jones
bald as a coot on the tiller.
- ‘ye o reet there m’lad’ -
he shouts, ‘in the pink’ I reply.
Conker’s plunging, on refill
rises Palace, Ma Becker’s boat
- long, tented, dark -
with peroxide whores half dead.
Salter after salter, coaler and coaler
drop. A long day done. Then down
- the boozer, then on to Becker’s -
for a bit of low priced rough.
Yes - Old Bridge marks the spot
where they chopped them off
- the locks -
water, gates, the lot.
RuncornA river, road and railway run
Through the town we call our home
Chosen for the bridge it formed
Between the jobs where we each worked
We’ve stayed for thirty years and more
Our children ask us what we saw
In such a down-beat place as this
By industry and crime depressed
We talk of wild-life, parks and Hill
Of theatre, bandstand, bus-way – still
The best thing they can think about
Is the ease of getting out!
But Autumn comes to Runcorn too
And touches trees with golden hue
And rainbows arch above the bridge
And steeples rise to give God praise
And through our lives a river weaves
The faith that brings us joy and peace
The love of family, neighbours, friends
The grace of God that never ends
John Williams
Written about one of the less well-known features of Cheshire – the beach at Runcorn.
An ounce of Mersey beach glass
After years coming this way
to tell how some small pleasure died
these chips of bottle and blue computer screen
return in a tangle of sea hair with their own sparse stories;
the neck of a bottle of scent,
chips of windscreen and crushed spectacle
scattered in their terrible dispersal
with intact knick-knacks of Late and Early china.
We like to see ourselves in a maker's mark,
in the bristle of glass snapped off in the thumb,
the sea cutting fresh glass from an orchid vase
that brings whole rooms to light
and the ceiling shaken by the sea's weak hiss.
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