The Ancient Gaffer ...

How old do you think I am? - I'm 82 - I've worked all my life - 

I started work aged 15 - I was a gardener's boy, out at Sandford - I worked for an old lady - she was terrible - if she saw just a bit of grass, she'd make you dig it all over again - I could have throttled her and buried her - 

Then I got a job on the clay pits - digging trenches - dredging the river - they gave me machines to play with - I said - of course I can bloody do that - 

There were six of us - there's only two of us left now, me and my sister - 

I'm going home to my railway - I've got a shed 20 feet by 10 feet - my train set's in there - 

I've got two gauges, Double O and narrow gauge, big engines and little engines - 

I've got a blue Mallard - 

I saw it once - whoosh! - and it was gone! - 

My grand niece likes the trains, she's up to here - she works at Monkey World - they had two thousand visitors two days ago - just to look at some monkeys!

We could go there - three monkeys! - 

We were walking along The Causeway, back to the Town Quay - 

I'd seen the gaffer, lurching gamely towards us in the rain - 

He had bright blue eyes and a shock of crazy hair - 

He was like the Ancient Mariner - we listened despite the wind and rain - 

We had to wrench our eyes away from his - 

I'm on to Stoborough Green he said at last - 

We walked on - 

Visitors in cagoules wished us a Happy New Year - 

Boats rode the grey river - rain clouds filled the sky - the church tower hoarded sermons - 

The gentle town was empty - 

It was the first day of the new year -

12.35

Friday 1 January 2016

The Causeway

Wareham