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Ee twere rainy day Rain were coming down slates In tut easing trough Out tut easing trough In tut drainpipe Out tut drain pipe In tut kitchen Cross kitchen floor Down tut cellar steps And drowning all me chickens
So went tut chap next door See if he could do owt about rain coming down slates In tut easing trough Out tut easing trough In tut drainpipe Out tut drain pipe In tut kitchen Cross kitchen floor Down tut cellar steps And drowning all me chickens
He said Nay man I can do nowt about rain coming down slates In tut easing trough Out tut easing trough In tut drainpipe Out tut drain pipe In tut kitchen Cross kitchen floor Down tut cellar steps And drowning all yer chickens You mun go tut town hall
So went tut town hall See if mayor could do owt about rain coming down slates In tut easing trough Out tut easing trough In tut drain pipe Out tut drain pipe In tut kitchen Cross kitchen floor Down tut cellar steps And drowning all me chickens
He said Nay man I can do nowt about rain coming down slates In tut easing trough Out tut easing trough In tut drainpipe Out tut drain pipe In tut kitchen Cross kitchen floor Down tut cellar steps And drowning all yer chickens Yer mun sell up and buy some ducks.
Keighley
A smoke covered town, with layers of soot
factories, foundries and mills all around,
back to back houses, street upon street
cellar dwellings and hovels abound
Dismal houses with boards where windows once shone
no sanitation and rats freely roam,
no carpets, bare boards, and just candlelight
two rooms and still it’s called home.
The North Beck flows through Westgate, down to the Worth
no longer where willows soft weep,
now filled up with filth and effluent thrown
till it’s a river of rubbish, knee deep.
Raggedy children, no shoes on their feet
thin bodies that are nithered with cold,
many a child will die before ten
hundreds more before they grow old.
The mills sound their sirens to herald the morn workers take their place on life's stage. from morning till night, they so what they must to survive Keighley in the Victorian age.
(c) Eric D. Bishop
Our Keighley
Deep in the heart of the buildings in town
buried deep in the bricks hard and cold,
there lies a world that very few know
and a story that waits to be told.
If the streets could tell of the sights they have seen
or the cobbles that people have trod,
the stately old trees, the seasons have passed
and the church where folk worshipped their God.
In the graveyard the memory of folk who have gone
their tragedies that have passed the world by,
the heartache, the suffering, that we cannot know
if we could, we surely would cry.
The child aged just ten, lies asleep in the earth,
no longer will she go to work,
in the cold grey morn, scarce a rag on her back
to the mill through the fog and the murk.
The pretty young lady with life still ahead
who stayed out with her lover too long,
when wind from the hills, chilled to the bone
now she’ll ne’er hear the lark’s happy song.
But as we go round the town, day upon day
spare a thought for those who are gone,
For with their courage, sorrow and joy
their lives, in our history will go on!
(c) Eric D. Bishop
Dalton Mills - Edward Bamforth
DALTON
MILLS
You were built in seventeen ninety and known as Strong Close Mill
In eighteen fifty six you changed your name to Dalton Mills
And to this very day you stand majestic, proud and bold
But what are the deep, dark secrets within your walls you hold?
Your looms were running night and day with clattering, fearful noise
And all the while were being fed by little girls and boys.
When fatal accidents occurred young childrens lives were claimed
Or loss of fingers, arm or leg left little kiddies maimed.
Down Dalton Lane your workers came, in early morning light,
To toil and labour long and hard until the dark of night.
Your chimneys belched out smoke and soot, polluting atmosphere,
But time has healed, the air is fresh, and skies are blue and clear.
Then in the nineteen seventies you fell upon hard times
The textile mills were closing down, the trade was in decline.
But thirty years have passed since then, another century’s here
It’s brought to you new lease of life, a future bright and clear.
So, with the Airedale Partnership, you’ll have a brand new start,
In Dalton Lane’s development, you’ll stand there at the heart.
With innovative businesses and dwellings by the score
You’ll build a strong community just like you did before.
Edward Bamforth……….October 2006
Postcard - Dalton Mill
How I wish I had Listened - Eric Bishop
How I wish I had listened, when I was a lad
To the stories my parents would tell,
Of the days of their youth, a time long ago
To grandparents, great Uncles as well.
But I was a teenager, I knew it all
My world filled with wine, women, and song,
Impatient with old folks, no time for the past
but now, all those memories are gone.
I wish I could turn back the old hands of time
To the days at my grandfathers knee,
And hear once again of days long ago
Of the town and the buildings they'd see.
Who can now say where an alehouse once stood
And the characters wherein that would meet,
The name of the bobby with cape and with gloves
And the roads that once were his beat?
There's very few left whose memories span
To the time before cars roamed the streets,
When gas lamps were lit, an eerie glow cast
And cobbles echoed to clogs on folks feet.
So listen I ask you, to those who still know
Whilst their knowledge and wisdom still last,
And record today all that you see
For tomorrow it will be part of the past!
Eric D. Bishop (c)
A Victorian Childhood
A cloud of dark smoke hangs over the town,
chimneys like long bony fingers stand tall,
layers of black soot settle over the streets
and hangs in the air like a pall.
Children with faces, grey with dirt and with grime
still run, shout and play with the best,
no worries have they in their first years of life,
until they go to the mills with the rest.
Their childhood is short, a few passing seasons
though they age far more quickly than years,
but now and again their faces are clean
the dirt washed away by their tears.
In Westgate they stand midst noon’s burning sun
the stench goes unnoticed by all,
though many a child will go to their rest
with no answer to their old playmates call.
A tired old crone, with a harsh barking cough,
leans on a young lad by her side,
though her years are perhaps barely forty or less
her face, the ravages of time cannot hide.
So here we sit in our warm comfy homes
and sift through the pictures we find,
we still can’t imagine, the life that we see
or the tragedy of their daily grind.
Copyright Eric D. Bishop
Old Westgate
Rivock Cup & Ring Stones
The small gods’ realms of leaf and bole are gone now, hewn and hacked, their temples felled, their power dispelled, melted away into bog and heath, bracken, whin and cotton grass.
Scuffed by centuries, splashed with lichen the rocks remain, etched with cups and rings, they endure. Scattered over the moors, their purpose, half-guessed at, intrigues and puzzles still.
Bent in votive awe, some artist ran calloused fingers over these first glyphs; primal mark-making that met a need to order, an urge to please some god, sate some divine. Lore and myth carved into stone.
I came upon one rock that reared. Bright with rain, it breached the sodden moor, its gallery of pocks and grooves ladders and serpents, shining in relief, clear in the diffuse light of a cloudy day.
As rain rattled on my hood, I dipped my shoulder, followed forgotten feet, joined an ancient dance; mirrored the movement of the stars; printed patterns on the floor of a lost forest; muttered a guttural chorus to my muddy strophe.
(c) Arthur Seeley
Cottingley Beck - Arthur Seeley
Cottingley Beck.
The narrow road drops down steeply towards the beck and the bridge where the two girls dreamed.
I lean upon the parapet watching the brown peat-laden waters spill over the shallow ford.
Their house, with tiny windows mossy walls and stone roof, is still there, with a Merc. parked nearby.
Sheltered from the pressing heat of this day I search the trees and shrubs, grass and rank weeds that crowd close.
Nothing seems to stir, my cynicism’s rife, only the occasional flitter of a bird through branches; quick and then gone.
Call them fairies if you will, goblin, elf or pixie, djinn or sprite, there is a place, there is a name.
They are the leaf that trembles catching light, the falling feather drifting down the breeze, a thistle seed, a shadow darting over water;
a figment, a little girl’s fancy, the need to give a shape a name, an embodiment
of the force that fills and flows, the spirit that breathes through all, the flame that fuses, fires our veins.
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