Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Cheshire Born: A Collection of Albums
    Cheshire Born: A Collection of Albums
    Cheshire Born: A Collection of Albums
    Ebook152 pages57 minutes

    Cheshire Born: A Collection of Albums

    By John Wright

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    In this collection, expect to travel.

    The evolving journey will take us through landscapes beyond borders of county and country, state and shire. Through the window on a slow train of poetry, we encounter scenes of birth and death, grief and joy, cowshed and asylum, often with a hearty whiff of whimsy in the tail.

    Set in sections like photo albums filled with snaps, readers are invited to experience with the poet, rich morsels of life captured in framed vignettes of verse.

    Starting with an event in Cheshire on New Years Day 1950, we are taken through farms and fields of childhood, our first day at a village school, then across the sea to Grandads farm in County Mayo where we meet ancestors.

    We visit Holland on an odyssey of adolescence, walking with canals, riding random railways, blown like a lonely cloud into some sort of self-discovery.

    Suddenly transported far away from Cheshire rain we join a bewildered migrant under Parramatta blue skies . . . . . . uniformed in cool verandah shade where we meet more interesting fellow souls.

    Moving to a far backyard on Australias east coast, north of Sydney we celebrate ordinary events like starting a family, mowing lawns, growing potatoes, feeling homesick. We shoot the messenger when the postman leaves no mail, we prove how dreams foretell and answer a loud knock on the door at 2am.

    Laugh and cry. Be in awe of Nature as the years melt in the glade of Now where we reflect, observe, remember.

    Enjoy this nightcap of Irish Breakfast Tea in a cup that runneth over. It will never be empty.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBalboa Press AU
    Release dateMay 11, 2011
    ISBN9781452501895
    Cheshire Born: A Collection of Albums
    Author

    John Wright

    John Wright is a naturalist and one of Great Britain's leading experts on fungi. His most recent books include A Spotter's Guide to the Countryside and The Forager's Calendar. He lives in Dorset, where he regularly leads forays into nature and goes on long walks across all terrains.

    Read more from John Wright

    Related to Cheshire Born

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Low Expectations

      Feb 1, 2019

      Low Expectations
      7 min read

    • Article

      TWO ESSAYS from FINGER EXERCISES FOR POETS

      Nov 1, 2022

      Russian Formalists have a word, “ostranenie,” which means constantly attempting to discover new ways of looking at everyday things. There are almost always two realities rubbing up against one another in every poem, whether they are specified or not,

      10 min read

    • Article

      Your Page

      Mar 30, 2022

      Like coming to an oasis in the desert – that is how I would describe coming home from the busyness of the shops and making a coffee, then finding an armchair to settle in for the first tantalising browse through my favourite magazine. Leisa Rossignol

      2 min read

    • Article

      Your Countryside

      Feb 9, 2023

      Your Countryside
      4 min read

    • Article

      Reader's Letter

      May 31, 2023

      SIR: I was astonished to read (Spring issue) that Hunter Davies believes he may be the only person left in the UK who has milk delivered in glass bottles every morning. Oop ’ere in t’north, we have milk delivered in this way. We also have Ringtons Te

      6 min read

    • Article

      All This Blood and Love

      Nov 22, 2017

      All This Blood and Love
      6 min read

    • Article

      Summer Beach Reads

      Jan 10, 2021

      Summer Beach Reads
      7 min read

    • Article

      Dear Frankie

      Aug 1, 2021

      Dear Frankie
      19 min read

    • Article

      Your Page

      Dec 7, 2023

      After a period of ill health, your November issue was just what I needed. I was thrilled to find the feature A Vision of Calm and discover what Frances van Hasselt has done in her art-filled cottage in the Karoo. This took me back to my life in Afric

      5 min read

    • Article

      Across The Whited Fields

      Oct 13, 2019

      In a twilight streeta small girl laughing. The red and yellow flowersprofuse, inhale the air. We want to hold your name,Polly, dancing in the rain Polly, skipping down the street.Sometimes the world bequeaths then takes away the one to whomou

      14 min read

    • Article

      Readersʼ Letters

      Jul 27, 2022

      Readersʼ Letters
      6 min read

    • Article

      A Waking Dream

      Sep 19, 2019

      A Waking Dream
      7 min read

    • Article

      Your Page

      Apr 27, 2022

      Jetting my way back through the clouds to coastal Victoria from Queensland following my father’s funeral, I opened the March edition of Country Style and took a deep breath. After a week of family tension and grief, ‘The Art Issue’, always a personal

      5 min read

    • Article

      SMALL Ponds

      Aug 5, 2019

      SMALL Ponds
      17 min read

    • Article

      Your Page

      Aug 17, 2022

      Little did I know that a Country Style front cover from September 2013 would lay the foundation for one of the last and most cherished memories I would have of my mother. After a nine-year stint in Venice Beach, Los Angeles, we moved back to country

      5 min read

    • Article

      Off The Shelf

      Jan 20, 2021

      Margaret Hickey grew up in country towns across Victoria and travelled overseas extensively before settling with her husband and sons in Victoria’s north east. This collection of short stories casts an unflinchingly accurate gaze on rural Australia a

      3 min read

    • Article

      Your Views

      May 28, 2021

      Your Views
      3 min read

    • Article

      A Parsonage in New Hope

      Dec 4, 2023

      A Parsonage in New Hope
      12 min read

    • Article

      Loyal Toasts

      May 11, 2022

      Loyal Toasts
      8 min read

    • Article

      On Aging

      Mar 1, 2022

      On Aging
      9 min read

    • Article

      Readers’ Letters

      Nov 15, 2023

      SIR: Among the things that Giles Wood is so pleased to have avoided, by turning down an invitation to stay for a week on a Scottish island (October issue), is the prospect of chatting through three-course dinners every night. As his putative (and ers

      4 min read

    • Article

      Nurturing Growth

      Jul 7, 2020

      I grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of East Tennessee, which was both challenging and rewarding. Mountain people live off of the land, and while that offers harvest, hope, and bounty, it also brings hardship and struggles. Due to rugged terrain an

      4 min read

    • Article

      My Old Kentucky Store

      Sep 12, 2019

      My Old Kentucky Store
      5 min read

    • Article

      Page Turner

      Sep 19, 2019

      Page Turner
      5 min read

    • Article

      Allegiance

      Nov 6, 2023

      Allegiance
      12 min read

    • Article

      Letters To The Editor

      Feb 10, 2021

      I ENJOYED ‘Farming’s brave new world’ (January 13), but feel that the voices of those at the grassroots weren’t heard. My cousins farm about 320 acres by Romney Marsh in Kent. They milk some 60 cows and bull and heifer calves are raised until they ar

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Cheshire Born

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Cheshire Born - John Wright

      Contents

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      1    VILLAGE, FIELD & FARM

      – Plain as Cheshire

      Yellow Bird

      The Queen’s English

      Siren

      Rags

      Message 1960

      MR PICK

      RAGBONE

      RUNNER 1961

      BAGGIN’

      CALF

      THE JOKE

      PENNINE CHANGE

      2    EIRE I - Ballyhaunis

      GRANDAD

      MAYO BOG

      THE SPRING

      GREAT UNCLE NED

      IRISH FUNERAL

      TINKER

      PAT-JOE

      DONKEY

      UNICORN

      JACK’S PROPHECY

      JOHN MAGUIRE

      PAT-JOE & THE PEGS

      3    THE HOOK OF HOLLAND

      – an Odyssey 1966

      FERRY

      BIKES

      BUS

      CANAL

      TRAM

      PENSION

      TRUCK

      TRAIN

      HOSTEL

      WINDOWS

      CURTAINS

      BREWERY

      FLEA MARKET

      TRADERS

      CHE

      FOREST

      GRADUATES

      LADDER

      4    PARRAMATTA - This Other Weather

      INTERVIEW (1968)

      ONE MAN STAND

      EUCHRED (1969)

      INITIATION

      SAILOR

      ALF & NELL

      ADMISSION

      ONE OF OUR DOCTORS

      THE SELF BOX

      GOLDEN APPLES

      MEDICI

      DELIVERY

      5    BUDGEWOI BEACH

      – A Far Backyard

      MOTOR MOWER

      DEAD GUM

      A PICK OF SPUDS

      HOMESICK

      LIZARD

      POSTIE

      FORETOLD

      SATELLITE LINK

      HIGHLAND WARRIOR AT WEMBLEY

      LOUTS

      DRUNK

      BEARER

      BUNKERED

      MINER

      DAUGHTER’S BIRTH

      BEDTIME HAIKU

      FATAL

      MITE

      6    EIRE II & MACCLESFIELD – Mullingar to Manchester

      IRISH POET

      NORTH & SOUTH

      BACK AT NED’S

      MATRIARCH

      EVACUEE

      POET’S DREAM

      KEEN

      CANDLE-FLAME

      POETRY COMPETITION

      FOLK CLUB

      SNOWBALL

      YELLER

      SAME AGAIN

      LOWRY MAN

      7   A LISAROW GLADE

      – The Melting Years

      THE BEAUTIFUL GRASS

      TROJAN BLESSING

      A MEMORY OF FROGS

      FINAL CALL

      GEMS

      HALO

      HAIR

      THE FUTURE OF THE BUD

      BUGS

      LIFE IN THE GUTTER

      SPIDER

      ANGELS @ 4AM

      LITANEIA

      FUN-FAIR

      CEREAL KILLER

      THE LAWS OF ATTRACTION

      NANNA

      ONE FOR THE POT

      CHESHIRE BORN

      - a collection of albums -

      INTRODUCTION

      In these poems, expect to be taken through archetypal realms of birth and death on mythical journeys-within-journeys of grief and joy, visiting cowshed and asylum often with hearty whiffs of whimsy or pathos in the tail.

      Set in sections reminiscent of photo albums filled with ‘snaps’, the reader is invited to experience with the poet, rich morsels of life captured in framed vignettes of verse and ‘stories I’m still living in’.

      Starting with an event in Cheshire on New Years Day 1950, we are taken through farms and fields of childhood, our first day at school, then across the sea to the farm in County Mayo where Grandad grew up.

      We visit Holland on an odyssey of adolescence, like an alien encountering canals, random railways, forest and freeway, blown like a lonely cloud into some sort of self-discovery.

      Suddenly transported to New South Wales, ‘far away from Cheshire rain’ we’re with the bewildered poet ‘under Parramatta blue skies … … uniformed in cool verandah shade’ where we meet some interesting fellow souls.

      Moving to ‘a far backyard’ on Australia’s east coast, north of Sydney we celebrate ordinary events like mowing lawns, growing potatoes, homesickness. We shoot the messenger when the postman leaves no mail, we prove the phenomenon of ‘foretelling’ in a dream and answer a loud knock on the door at 2am.  

      Laugh and cry and be in awe of Nature in the Lisarow Glade. As the years melt we reflect, observe, remember characters and events, bathed in the love of Annie Preece whose wings of Love and Protection have always been folded round her first grandchild, now 61 (or is he still 16?).

      Enjoy this nightcap of Irish Breakfast Tea. This cup that runneth over will never be empty.

      THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED

      TO THE DESCENDANTS

      of Annie Preece and Billy Kirrane with special thoughts for Mum’s sister Maureen Kirrane who recently joined Jeff, her parents and her younger brother John. They live on in every thought and heartbeat.

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      A number of these poems have been published in Australian magazines, journals and newspapers including The Newcastle Herald, The Tasmanian Review, Island Magazine, Poetry Australia, Quadrant, The Saturday Club Poetry Magazine, Five Bells (the Australian Poets Union), Prospect 2, Central Coast Poets Anthology 2008 and 2010. Baggin’ was included in ‘Rattling in the Wind’ – an Anthology for Australian Children (Omnibus Books 1987). Some of the Irish poems featured in ‘Cloonbulliban’ a small book self-published locally (in Gosford, NSW) 2008.

      1    VILLAGE, FIELD & FARM

      – Plain as Cheshire

      Yellow Bird

      You were there, Sister Cassidy

      when that frightened girl brought in

      on New Years Eve, needed someone

      who knew how to care.

      You made sure, Sister Cassidy

      she was safe in bed with cotton

      sheets and woolly blankets,

      reassured and well prepared.

      From her window she could see

      the fields of Cheshire, covered

      in the bridal gown of winter

      white as eiderdown.

      Confetti flakes still floated

      in the air with crystals fine

      as curtains of a decade

      closed on 1949.

      There you were, Sister Cassidy

      as soft snow stirred a storm

      into a blizzard, pain and fear

      blocking out the moon.

      When a wrinkled head appeared

      with signs of jaundice

      you said: "A Yellow Bird

      is here

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1