North Staffordshire

Thanks for dropping in.

A few bits and pieces from the archives…

Up to 2,000 bottle kilns once filled the skyline of the Potteries helping to give the city of Stoke-on-Trent its unique character. A few survivors can be seen from Normacot Road, Longton.

Uncle George

Younger than he should have been,
A boy joined up at seventeen
To fight for Country, King and Queen.
George was seventeen.

With sons and fathers by the score,
He heard the distant battle roar.
Where many lads had gone before,
He heard the battle roar.

His brother saw him, so they say,
Marching, proudly, on his way.
Charlie came back home to stay –
But George was on his way.

I know so little, I confess.
The horror there, I can but guess:
A muddy trench, a bloody mess…
But I can only guess.

A boy joined up at seventeen
And all the rest remains unseen.
And all for Country, King and Queen –
The rest remains unseen.

Stoke

Wetley Moor

Here, beneath a shroud of fog,
Lies all that’s left of Wetley Moor.
This frozen footpath, last I trod
Some forty years before.

But this was just The Common then,
An unrestricted open space;
Today, as cul-de-sacs encroach,
It feels a less exclusive place.

Where once they toiled for sand and stone,
Or clawed for coal below the ground,
Now my crackling footsteps make
The icy silence quite profound.

The trig point stands forlorn above
A filled in quarry where we’d play
For hours by a rubbish dump –
There’s nothing much to see today.

Though after half an hour or so
I find myself beside the pond –
And there’s the stile that used to take us
Home by Bluebell Woods beyond.

At last, the morning sun breaks through
As voices float across the moor.
And, for a moment, I’m that boy
Of forty years before.

The old market town of Leek grew prosperous in the 18th century with the arrival of the silk-weaving industry. St Edward's Church crowns the hilltop in a manner befitting a town called The Queen of the Moorlands.

An Autumn Sunset

The call of a curlew, the screech of a jay,
A long country walk brings the end of the day.
A secretive valley, a joy to behold,
Marvellous vistas of yellow and gold.
A tumbledown cottage, a towering spire,
An old village inn with a welcoming fire.
And westward, to Cheshire, the sun settles down –
The Queen of the Moorlands is wearing her crown.

Skylark

Skylark, in the morning light,
Ascend to some specific height,
And tell the world, in sound and sight,
The winter's passed.

Skylark, yes, you seem to sing
Of all the joy the year could bring.
The sweetest song of early spring
Is here at last.