Beryl was a racing cyclist

The mistress of chain and sprocket

A national time trial heroine

She was in nobody's pocket

Like Dorothy Hyman from Cudworth

The girl from Leeds was undersold

London media ignored her

The BBC kept her in the cold

Today she would be lauded

Her talent would make a million

Sponsors would lionise her

Radiant on that golden pillion

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Teenagers, cycling across the Dales
up country roads in the seventies sun
wheels turning, chests burning
on our way to Tan Hill Inn

Too young to drink then
we'd sit in the garden 
catch our breath and if we're lucky
maybe the northern lights
I'd take photographs
thinking to myself
one day I'll bring my wife here
one day I'll bring my children
if I have any
and we'd cycle home

All...

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This allegorical poem came out of my awareness of time passing, and a sense of the ultimately insubstantial or superficial qualities of much of this life that, as we grow older, seem less important or valuable than they once were.

Losing Faith

Faith, old friend, so wise and fulsome,

faded beauty at end of day,

draw me aside in a beechwood spinney,

make me swear on the code with...

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Driving over the morning's misty hills

While passing a wheel of serious cyclists

An observation of pert bottoms was spotted.

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