Lane Ends
Cars speed by, their red tail lights painting a vibrant scene. Buses pick up their passengers, the shops have the locals bobbing in and out, buying their groceries and topping up credit on their mobile phones. Youths hang around in their hooded jackets and young girls stand and chatter in their up-to-date fashions. The old cenotaph at Wesham looks grey and tired by comparison.
Looking up at the old moon in the chilly heavens, I think if it could tell a tale, a tale of bygone times of all the rumours of the past history of Kirkham and Wesham, it would be a colourful one.
Suddenly, in the dark of the evening, a scream is stifled as a young boy steps up onto the gallows. A bright, winter, younger moon is shining in the sky. As it offsets the tendrils of navy blue clouds, an owl hoots from its alder and then makes its way to the top of the wooden scaffold. It looks down at the young lad - dressed in the uncomely attire of a ripped cream shirt and brown roughly woven pants - an emblem of the finality of the occasion, or maybe it senses his fear and wants to comfort him and abide with him like a friend.
The young boy’s clogs clatter on the wooden steps. He looks scared, really scared. He has been caught stealing chickens and a blood-thirsty queen sits on the throne.
Usually, hangings take place by daylight, but the people of the town wanted a night hanging. A change from piling into the local alehouse or darning and sewing by candlelight or salting meat and preparing herbs for the next day’s meal.
There are lanterns everywhere. Squealing children hold candles in jars. Mulled wine with herbs is poured into pewter tankards and goblets. The boy’s peasant parents are inconsolable as his brother and two sisters huddle together and cry wildly as they are held in check by the lawkeepers.
The boy has the noose put around his slight neck, he looks up to the heavens, his mouth is dry. With a look of fear in his eyes, he is almost unaware of the ghoulish crowd beneath him clamouring for excitement.
A breeze gets up, then the wooden slat beneath his feet is removed.
The Slaves of Market Street
A young girl is standing on a patch of grass in pauper’s clothing and no shoes on a sunny summer’s day. The auctioneer, an overfed man with a bulldog expression, dressed in black with a deep, white collar and black hat, is standing behind a wooden table trying to sell the girl. She will work as a maid in someone’s house.
Her expression is one of worry. She looks at the crowd, hoping she will go to a good master or mistress. There are kindly looking middle aged ladies – maybe she will get a job looking after an old lady who lives in a pleasant house and just wants to enjoy her last years in peace, someone who won’t overtax her with too many duties.
Voices call out as the bidding gets up to a higher and higher price. Her eye catches an uncomely looking man with ginger sideburns and beard leering at her. She hopes he doesn’t buy her. He puffs on his clay pipe and puts up his hand as a higher figure is called. The wooden hammer bashes down on the block.
‘Sold!’ shouts the auctioneer.
The young girl’s face is troubled as the man, looking thoroughly pleased with himself, barges through the crowd and drags her off to his horse and cart. He gestures to his bawdy friends that he’ll see them at the Royal Oak alehouse.
The Workhouse on Derby Road
It’s Christmas in the workhouse down Derby Road and the staff are busy putting up the tree, a real pine one, and decorating the branches with candles. With the help of some of the inmates, they make paper chains and hang them from the ceiling. Usually the place is rather severe and Spartan, comprising of smells of oil and wood polish, protruding pipes and tall windows. Normally the place lacks soul and everyone works hard with their various chores, but at Christmas the inmates can have time off to spend with their relatives.
The children are excited as they chatter together in their dormitories and even the matron seems gentler in her approach. Perhaps the Christmas spirit has affected her. She hides the cane in the sanctity of her room and starts to fill up the stockings for the workhouse poor. The presents are meagre by today’s standards - an apple, an orange, some raisins – but luxury to them.
The carol singers from the local church come and sing in each dormitory of the workhouse. The place is lit by gas lamps, giving off their golden glow and making their soft, hissing sound. The inmates look forward to Christmas Day and Christmas dinner. They think of their departed relatives in the churchyard at Christ Church. One of two of them might be allowed out to lay a holly wreath there.
As people nip out for a newspaper or buy bottles of wine and children play on their games consoles, I wonder if they realise the tales of times gone by in Wesham.
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The Kirkham Archipelago
Ken Metcalf
What would Solzhenitsyn write
of this, the Kirkham Archipelago
here and now inside this grey, thin walled escarpment, wired;
this village damned by me and others for its guilty name?
The odious constraint of old fat bellies, sweat belted
and oh so angry screwed up faces, un-Zen
the working class Daily Mailers, the jailors
of the black and white battalions, beyond the pale.
And just, or justice, through the gate
the cheap shops and cheaper clothes
of a slightly shabby population
of the dead eyed pensioners and parishioners wishing they lived in Lytham.
The civilians, with their semi-detached houses crumbling slowly over time
the new shiny Ford Focus on the drip
the two weeks abroad in sunlight, on their lined upturned faces
saying abroad, as if it were another country.
And you can see it, you know, the oh so nagging thought
that even the cons, the bloody cons,
seem happier, more free somehow and unblocked
at least they seem to know exactly why they’re here.
But wait, in all these ten thousand things to think
an unexpected wondrous prize, unable to be taken or asked for
of the best brown eyed smile you have ever seen
and the occasional sweet kindness upon this porous ground
of the Kirkham bloody Archipelago.
Four years, eight months exactly, this sentence plan is slow
just time to spend in here, waiting for the cell-by date.
One piece of my heart on leaving will stay a festering sore
on the Kirkham Archipelago and all I left behind the door.
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Day’s End
Kevin Devine
Night falls, silent, dark and calm.
Another day over before it’s begun.
Gazing into the pitch dark night
the beauty of the stars glitters, peeking
through the black, backdrop sky,
going nowhere
just resting for a few short hours
until the sun rises
to brighten our day.
Chirping away, feeding their young, killdeer
break the silence of the night.
These are our friends, they come to visit.
Just the birds. That’s all that’s left.
No cats or rabbits. None at all.
They’ve all been removed
from behind this wall.
Only field mice are still around
scurrying day and night
picking up leftovers the birds lost in flight.
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Acknowledgements
Many thanks to the people of Kirkham for supporting their library, and to Richard MacSween and Sarah Schofield who ran creative writing workshops there in autumn 2012.
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The Kirkham Community Fiction Anthology Page 3
