And did Old England once, play by the rules,

That nation of shopkeepers, honest folk,

Who shunned smooth-talking charlatans and fools?

Once, solidarity broke the tyrants’ yolk,

When Yeomens’ sabres slashed at Peterloo,

When Murder wore the Mask of Anarchy,

When on Cable Street, at the Workers’ Waterloo,

The Blackshirts’ arrogance met with Unity.

Th...

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My mother had a habit, when times were bad, for example when dad had lost his job, of uttering the phrase: “God is good!”, an expression of her Christian faith and hope. The expression: “Thank God for that!”, is an everyday one of gratitude, as of course is “goodbye”, derived from “God be with you”; a similarly used Arabic phrase forms the title of my sonnet.

My republican instincts lead me to ...

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In Praise of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution

The words in German are from a revised version of Schiller’s Poem "An die Freude" Ode to Joy. I’ve paraphrased them in English to form the first four lines of my poem.

Part of Schilller’s poem formed the basis  of the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, an extract of which, was adopted by the European Union, on the grounds that ...

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Bit of a cockup in original posting -here goes!

Their Favourite Things

Teardops they’re shedding; with lies they’ve been smitten,

“Bright sunlit uplands” still promised for Britons,

Brown paper packages, no attached strings,

Those are a few of their favourite things.

When reality bites, when the truth stings,
When they’re feeling sad,
They’ll simply remember their fa...

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