My Grandads’ Poetry 14: Enough No More Part 2

It’s been a criminally long time since I last posted one of my grandads’ poems, over three years to be precise! This was mainly because typing them up digitally was a pretty time-consuming process, laptop balanced on my lap and the old folder he’d typed the originals up in (by typewriter, fancy!) balanced on the narrow arm of the chair – it was a bit of a nightmare!

But then I discovered that I can lift entire pages from the original paper and into WordPress using Google Lens’ Text feature, and what a game changer that has been! So here we are, immortalising another poem. This one is the second part of Enough no More, which I posted way back in 2020. I do wonder if my grandad really had this adventure, though I also know he was a master storyteller and yarn spinner…

Then I began thinking, what’s happening at the house they’ll be looking for me, “He’s gone off like a mouse” The police and the neighbours all walking around, looking and listening for any small sound.

A police dog can find me, he’d sniff and he’d smell and find my dugout hideaway in a beautiful dell. Away I must go, away for a week away to a rum place, as they’ll never seek.

Now I know where there is one, not very far away at all, along my clear brook and under the canal wall. From Marbury Mere to Forge Pool runs this little brook, I’ll go into the tunnel and find me a nook.

So one hundred yards from the tunnel, I entered the stream, and walked along the pebbles, splashing worse than a bream, up to that tunnel, my word it was dank, to look in with the candle, on my haunches I sank.

“Well, shall I do it? Of course lad you must”. So down I bent and crept in, do it or bust, twelve yards, wet and slimy, then surprisingly dry, the brickwork ended, then look; oh my!

The clay had fallen a long time ago and a cave had been made by the swift waters’ flow. A slight modification, some sacks and some straw, a little bit draughty of course, there wasn’t a door.

All day I worked to get my things in. Some food, candies and a few bits of string. I had enough stock to last me the week, now no one could find me, let their dogs go and seek.

I stayed in that cave for seven days in the dark and on that seventh day, I heard a dog bark. Sure enough, I was frightened of what I would tell, then I heard voices as clear as a bell.

“His trace is a hundred yards upstream, further up’t brook, what about this tunnel, no, it’s not fit for a spook; Let’s go back again and fetch the other dog, and pick up the scent by the old Beech tree log!

Silence, and then they are back again flashing a torch, all up this here tunnel and over the porch. “It’s too wet and slimy, too small and cold, he’d not go up there man, he’s not so damn bold”.

Off again they trampled, through the leaves in the wood, twas the last I heard of them, and all well and good. I slept in my straw bed and looked at the clay, for fifteen days afore I saw the fresh light of day.

Hungry and wet I was, miserable and cold, so I waded to the entrance to look and be bold. Not a soul, not a sound at six in the morn, only the wind singing and rustling the corn.

Up to a patch along Marbury Lane, was I stiff, near limping lame.”

Away I went and climbed into the wood, cold and hungry and all caked with mud. I struggled up to an old briar paten, its luscious fruits just ripe to be taken. I ate plenty and felt better for that, and there I settled, I lounged and I sat.

Now I’m no genius but it was sure clear to me, that I dare not go back yet to the hole under the tree. So hence to the tunnel, I wended my way, at eight in the morning, the start of the day.

Down I crouched and in I splashed, along to my clay cave with its floor of straw. On the sacks I lay and made me a line, with the strings I had brought and a sharp nooked tine.

Now with a nice fat worm, slimy and cold, I dropped the hook and line and watched it unfold, It slipped away downstream in the dark, for five minutes it swirled, then a pull like a shark.

I pulled it into the candle glow so in my light the catch would show. In it came a big black thrashing twig I’d caught me an eel, I’d caught me a snig.

How the Devil do you kill it, I can’t keep it still, I stood on its head and it flayed like a mill. Then down with the knife and off with its head, it still jumped about even when it was dead.

I sat down on the sacks to belly its gut what a beautiful skin, na black as wet soot. Then into pieces and into the pan, cooked slow and tender, a feast for a man.

The snig bubbled and jumped then stewed in its Juice, the small fire sang like a banshee let loose. And then they were ready the flesh from the bone, so I ate all my cooking, the best I had known.

After, I lay on the sacks and gazed at a rat, who washed its face then it came and asked, so being a gentleman I offered it a bone and there we sat, dining at home.

Up I started and the rat scuttled away. Dare I venture out again, I decided I may. So along the tunnel I paddled, heading downstream, but I came to another clay slip in the tunnel wall seam.

And here was a six-foot gap, indeed a large mole And now it is here that a story unfolds.