Stowing Memories

It's the 40th Anniversary of Liskeard School and as an ex-pupil, ex-employee, and an ex-student governor, I wanted to have a hand in the celebrations! Bob Hollingdale commissioned a piece for the occasion and I've included a video of me reading it (as well as the original text).

With terrible weather beating down outside, it seemed likely to be a wash out but it really wasn't! More and more people came in seeking shelter from the grotty rain, and probably a cup of tea and cake. We had quite a packed out library filled with ex-staff and teachers and former students.

You can see my poem and some other works, along with old school memorabilia, at the Stuart House exhibition in Liskeard's town centre. It's on until the 28th of September.

Stowing Memories

There’s a tan coloured plastic cup
sat out of place
in the lonely tennis ball graveyard
of Hazard Alley,
wandered far
from Lux Park’s vending machine,
catching a ride on the wind,
 
it’s talking to itself,
reminiscing of friends gone by,
baked apple crumbles,
the fresh bread rolls unbuttered,
the greasy sausage rolls that are now all vegans,
and the countless bags of chips
who’ve got their GCSE’s and A Levels
and are now studying
how to be full time parents or
how to salute whilst making a bed,
 
he remembers stink bombs
unable to contain themselves
in the main corridor
in the French rooms
in the toilets
in the English department
in... well... you get the idea,
 
he’s laughing to himself
picturing sliding down the banister
of the stairs in the old hall
of the stairs in the technology building
of the stairs in the French rooms
of... well... you get the idea,
 
he’s trying to remember
how to speak French,
“Il y a un jambon
et un poisson avec moi
a la discotheque.”
He thinks he sounds clever,
 
he wonders what happened
to the thick wooden tables
that used to balance Bunsen burners
on their heads
in the old science block,
bulky wooden tables
cut from the Ark or the Argonaut
or maybe just a really fat tree,
 
there’s a smell he cannot place,
either burning wood
sanded on the spinning disk
or maybe just the smell of
burnt toast coming from
the sixth form common room,
 
from his spot by the fire station,
he can hear the school buses
stamping up and down the road,
he wants to know if they have a dinner pass
or perhaps they don’t need one
because they’re buses,
do they still expel dust from the seats
when a body slams down on them?
Does the dust dance like it’s in
the Inter-Tutor Group Dance Competition
or does it have more of a
pre-University fed ambition?
 
If the dust still dances then
(he hopes)
surely the stink of dried mud
in the changing rooms
still plays rugby,
or maybe it still clings to the backs of legs
or ears, hoping to sneak its way
into a maths lesson
and steal itself some learning,
 
he imagines the lockers to be
the cleverest of all the
sentinels of the school,
all those decades of books stuffed inside,
hour upon hour
studying geographical maps,
the civil rights movement, and
Mr Shakespeare,
though on that logic
the lockers should have
high cholesterol
from all those decades of crisps stuffed inside,
 
the tan coloured plastic cup
sighs deeply
in the lonely tennis ball graveyard
of Hazard Alley,
it lifts from the ground
and wanders far,
catching a ride on the memories.