Like scruffy schoolboys the locomotives

with hunched shoulders, disgraced,

mooched off to Dai Woodham's

scrapyard in Barry

 

for a holiday by the sea,

no buckets and spades

only old rakers and scrapers

witch's wares, eyeless cabs

blunted back to front

the final ignominious shunt.

 

Then came the vultures

flapping on nostalgic wings

seeing some of their favourite things.

Eyes to a future, affronted men

forging a hardness to begin again.

 

Dai Woodham, with practical thought

sensed the romance that lingers with

a perfume of oil and coal

gave up the torch, turned turtle

sniffed the bouquet,

sea air and a fair return

 

shrugged and accepted

his newfound status, resurrectionist

of the valleys,

opened up the sands again

when all those schoolboys made their grades

shiny uniforms in different shades,

and men with paint and men of brass

brought back fire and steam to the glass.