Now I'm A Man

Now I'm A Man

    I came out here a boy, just a village boy who worked the soil and sang in church, a boy that rang the parish bells, enjoyed Sunday walks and one who would tease the girls of Morden. Just a Cambridgeshire boy that drank from the village pump and rode upon the harvest carts, a boy that watched cricket on the green, swung his scythe, stacked the hay and sat warming by yuletide log telling tales of Christmas past to his baby sisters. A boy I was, one who gleaned the hedgerows for summer fruits, collected bird’s eggs and enjoyed the village dance and in winter raw I would shovel snow and used a snare to fill the pot.
  Now, well now I'm a man, a man who wears the King's colours and fights the King's war, a man who looks out upon miles of mud, blood tinted cold ice-covered mud, a man who longs to hear the blackbird sing, who has worn the scent of another’s blood and has seen what no man should see. I’m just a man who dreads that whistle that signals the slow walk to death, a man who cries each evening while many a Tommy does sleep, one who trembles when the big guns roar and who eats from a tin held in mitten wrapped hands white with cold. Yes, I’m now a man who has witnessed gassed men choke and the mud-caked rats that share our beds while we dream of peace. A man who longs for news of home where the ground is rich with grass and no man lives in a hole littered with the rotting limbs of Tommy and Fritz, but most of all, I’m a man who wishes with all his heart he was still that boy.

You Sit And Wait

 You Sit And Wait

   You sit and wait, remembering family homes, mothers cooking and the smells that fill the pantry on those cold winter nights.
   There you sit, wet, cold and full of fear, looking at the blood-stained, mud-caked wooden rungs on those ladders that lead from hell to heaven.
   You sit waiting upon that whistle, that haunting sharp piercing whistle, the sound that lets heaven's gates know it's time to open and welcome yet more khaki-clad boys.
   Back home, well they sit by fires awaiting any tiny glimpse of hope, they pray and wait just as you do, their fear may be no match for yours but enough to banish any smile that once sat upon their faces.
   You sit and wait, memories of Sunday walk through tree-lined lanes, long summer days and harvest work, hard and warm, but much missed.
  Now you face a different walk, one lined by no trees nor one-paced under the summer sun, for this stroll you will never forget, the mud, the water-filled shell-holes and skin confetti that hangs upon wire barbed and rusted.
   And if you fail to return to those mud-filled rat runs you now call home, in every village and every town we will carve your name in stone and remember you always. For you are our heroes and hell you faced so we could walk free, thank you our brave Tommies of the king.

Fen Churches

   When cycling around the fens and visiting different villages I always try to look around the parish church, not because I'm a religious person, far from it, but because I adore the many skills that were brought together in building such places. When I think of the poor craftsmen who worked from dawn until dusk and the tiny wage they would earn I get a great feeling of sadness come over me. Yes, there are some Victorian churches of which more respected craftsmen were used but with the Medieval churches, these labourers and craftsmen were so afraid of the church that they were basically used as slave labour. Thankfully these days we are more educated so the threat of being punished by God that hung over their heads is not now present and no priest can punish us for refusing to attend their services or can order us to work on their great houses of worship.

   So for me, the only reason I look around these great stone buildings is to admire the work of the stonemasons, the carpenters and the glass artists who produced the stunning windows that tell stories of the bible.
   There are many fine examples here in the fens, some large and ornate, others in dire need of repair like the leaning parish church in Friday Bridge. Luckily most churches in this area are unlocked during the summer months so it's easy to gain entrance, there are a few where I have yet to see inside but I hope next summer I can correct that and will discover more beautiful carvings in both stone and wood.

   The Marshes have their own beautiful churches including the "Cathedral of the Marshes" at Walpole St Peter with its unique tunnel under the nave and the amazing huge stain glass windows that project stunning light shows upon its interior walls.

   Over at the Washes you find the smaller village churches, often Victorian like that of the village of Welney. These churches are often built of brick and alas lack the many beautiful carvings found in those churches from the early and late medieval periods.
   I hope to use the next post here on my blog to show some of the wonderful carvings I've uncovered inside some of these great stone houses of god and further posts on the subjects of stained glass windows and graveyards. I hope you all take a few minutes to look around your local churches and don't forget you need not be religious to admire the work of those who were often forced to build these buildings of grandeur.