OLDEN DAYS

by Pete Slater

Wednesday 17th April 2013 4:19 pm

Something for my Mum ......

OLDEN DAYS

In olden days

So my mother says

Life was quite different then

Mills were satanic

All food was organic

And your elders, all wise men

You went to school

Then went int’ mill

No sick pay then,

You couldn’t afford to be ill.

If you couldn’t work,

You didn’t get paid

There was no time off

And little time for play

Everyone worked to live

In days gone by

Before a human could fly

Life was all shawls and clogs.

Life was diluted,

The air was polluted,

And mornings were wrapped in fog

They went to work in the dark

Where the only light was a spark

Kicked up from a dancing clog.

There was the knocker upper

Whose job was to scupper

A working family’s dreams

And in the damp of morning

He doused lamps and gave warning

It was the start of a brand new day

Gas lights, cold nights

Early mornings barely dawning

Shared beds, shaved heads

Keeping the lice at bay.

Everything was carried

By horse and cart

While grandad

Spat in the fire and farted

Barking out orders

And scratching his belly

What else could he do?

There wasn’t a telly.

No computers or mobile phones

Only the cry of a rag and bone man

Offering donkey stones

In exchange for old clothes

Times were hard

And a tin bath in the yard

Was the only treat for us all

Every man wore a hat

And the women had chats

Over the back yard wall

There were corner shops

And ration books

Cobbled streets

And haunted looks

On men returned from war

Who had been shocked by shells

Fought through a living hell

Unsure what it had all been for.

Women were bosses then

Regretting the losses

Of the men who didn’t return

They lit a fire in the soul

Of the world as a whole

That still continues to burn

It wasn’t all good then

But it wasn’t all bad

People got on with it

Surrounded by sadness

They had a sense of community

Which gave them some immunity

To the harshness of the day

At least that’s what my mother says

Because

Life was quite different

Then.

Comments

<Deleted User> (6895)

Fri 19th Apr 2013 20:48

Blimey!that corner shop image
reminds us so much of our old one
where we used to spend Uncle Vic's
half-a-dollar on Jubblies
and Uncle Joe's mint balls.xx

M.C. Newberry

Thu 18th Apr 2013 15:19

A well sustained evocation of times past. My late mother who was born in 1902 would surely have had memories of those days. I still recall her talk of the dread of the workhouse...the fate from which there was no likelihood of rescue. Tough days bred tough people who got on with life as best they could and had their tightly held ideas of self-reliance and respect. They made us what we are...those of us who are their offspring.

Isobel

Thu 18th Apr 2013 07:18

Really great poem Pete. The olden days WERE full of hardships we'd find it hard to imagine today - but the great thing we've lost, is our sense of community - that which came from all being in it together - the dark satanic mills and all.

Some of that may be down to sheer numbers of people also. There are no pockets of people any more - one suburb just sprawls into another.

Great poetry.

Yvonne Brunton

Wed 17th Apr 2013 23:50

Ah I remember it well (well not the knocker-uppers!)excellent work. Maybe we are heading back to some of those situations - perhaps not the tin bath but shivering in the cold seems likely and it might do industry a lot of good if people who missed Monday at work got no pay - might cure a few hangovers too.
Love the lines:-
Women were bosses then

Regretting the losses

Of the men who didn’t return

XX

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OLDEN DAYS

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