Chapter 8

One thing we had to do with my mother;
Visit "in service" friends, one or the other.
One old lady; she had no teeth.
Chin touched her nose from beneath.

Always she would sit in an old high-back chair.
Pointing to her wrinkled face, "kiss me there!".
I'd bravely brace myself and have a go;
Couldn't miss those bristles though.

Scared the very life out of me.
Soon they sat drinking cups of tea.
Mum gave me pencil and some paper;
Draw matchstick men - savvy old caper.

Another lady who I liked to visit
Where I wasn't just told to sit.
She had in a big polished brass-bound box,
A thing for which I would have given my socks.

Like a gramophone - I know not its name;
You wound it and it turned just the same.
The 'records' played were of tin
With lots and lots of holes punched in.

A fancy music box, I suppose it to be.
A magical thing it seemed to me.
Visiting just across from the church,
Older man, down steep garden would lurch.

Nothing wrong with his legs I could see.
He rolled from very many years at sea.
This was my mum's uncle; great-uncle to me.
He told me tales of when he was at sea.

Of dragging a field-gun from ship into China.
Ships of oak, men of steel; nothing finer.
Fighting the Chinese in the Boxer war.
I just sat there, listening with great awe.

From the women he would pardon.
Take me to the top of his sloping garden.
Ferns my height, or even higher;
Compost the tops - rest put on the fire.

Told me of ship Ganges when made of wood.
Just off the place where Ganges now stood.
He served as a boy's instructor 1908;
Off the ship, then through Shottey Gate.

He'd show me the picture of his wedding day.
Him and six sailor brothers, there on display.
Influencing me and shaping my life,
Long before I was able to take a wife.

Again I must remind you of dates and times.
Recollection, not history, in these rhymes.