........................Childhood days remembered.
Remember how the sun was always shining
In our childhood days
And innocence and laughter filled our lives
In many, many ways.
Shut your eyes a moment and dwell
On all the wondrous things
So normal in their being,
So magical their spell.
Remember the small cobbler's shop
Which hung with pungent leather smells
And the cafe on the corner
Where we purchased
Threepenny bags of sweets.
Can you see the Co-op
With its butter barrel and ham machine,
Crusty bread,
Indian tea
And all that sawdust on the floor.
Two rooms and a scullery
Were all we had for living in,
With set-in beds,
A black-lead grate
And linoleum on well-scrubbed floors.
Trains would rattle
In our village,
Shaking happy childhood homes.
We all believed in fairies
In those lovely, misty, summer days
And walks took us
To tall, green woods,
Where we would play
Or simply laze.
Were you a cowboy or an Indian?
Were you a king or a queen?
Did we sail down snow-thick hills
On corrugated iron sheet -
Did we fly our paper kites
And feel the wind
Beneath our feet?
There were parades and donkey rides
And cricket on the village green
Now there is some long, wild grass
In a place
Where our lives once had been.
To have the gift of shutting eyes
And travelling
Into bejewelled pasts
Of childhood's violet-coloured haze,
Like bluebell woods
And singing birds
And sunfilled days
And days
And days.
CATHERINE McALINDEN (nee SLUDDEN)
GARTCOSH 1944-1956.