Thursday 24 November 2016

Cloud Farm

Dorothy Cowley, who grew up in Clouds Farm.


Cloud Farm

‏I was brought up
‏in Cloud Farm
‏Western Underwood
‏The last girl living
‏Nobody around for miles

‏Up in Cloud Farm
‏Western Underwood
‏Walked miles to school
‏4 miles
‏Up

‏In Cloud Farm
‏bread and jam or
‏bread and butter
‏Wouldn’t have both
‏In

‏Cloud Farm
‏Carrying a gas mask and
‏2 slices
‏Last girl living in the
‏West.

‏Ivy
New Mills Volunteer Centre
‏10th Feb 2016




Tuesday 22 November 2016

Assortment of things

Dad walks the valley
‏When icicles hang the wall
‏And Greasy Jane kneels the pot
‏He cobbled our shoes with old bike tyres
‏The sheets he cut down the middle
‏And sewed from the outside
‏"There's lots of wear left in them."
‏And Dick the Shepherd blows his fingers.
‏He walks miles for his work
‏And nightly sings the stirring owl
‏"A spoonful of Emulsion - cheaper
‏Than Cod Liver Oil, or Malt."
‏Rent 8 shillings, the Widow's Pension 11
‏And Tom brings logs into the hall.       
         
‏Mary Nicholson
‏Hope
‏Nov 2015







In 2014 artist Lois Blackburn began working on two history quilts with older people in rural Derbyshire. Stitching the Wars is the story of a community that survived two world wars and harsh poverty. It is a kind of documentary, constructed with recollection, poetry, and the art of stitching. Perhaps in making it, a few wounds were healed.

‏A series of poems accompany the quilts. All of the stories and poems here are people's own words. They speak not only of violence, or sadness, but also of great affection for the past, for their fellow humans, and for the beauty of the land around them. In love and in hate, in war and in peace, you'll find their words here, set among stitched fields of greens and browns and blood red.

An item of luxury

'Fresh Air and Poverty' quilt exhibited at National Trust's Lyme Park, Cheshire.

‏Grandparents
‏Went to Scarborough, coach trip
‏One day of a trip in
‏100 years of charabancs
‏Granddaddy dug the first grave on Buxton Road
‏A pound a week
‏Made his wage up by tending graves
1897
‏Youngest in a big family
‏My grandmother walking a basket round Buxton
‏Jam in, eggs in, cheese, butter and walked it
‏A luxury would be a new hat
‏(Hide it from the husband)

‏Farmed Moorside
‏It's now a school for naughty boys
‏The old ones took pride in hats
‏To church on Sunday
‏No hay on Sunday
‏Everyone in black
‏To funerals, new clothes for anniversaries
‏Easter bonnets

‏My mother's desire was a dining suite that matched
‏That was the desire: what the rich had
‏Cut glass and china
‏Every time she raised nearly enough money
‏They needed a new cow
‏And she kept being put off.

‏My grandad worked on the railways
‏Their holiday was a day on the trains
‏Walking to church on Sunday, the preacher said:
‏"I'm just drowning the dog
‏and then I'll be there."
‏A tin of pears on Sunday afternoon
‏Or shirt buttons that matched.
‏Grandfather died when I was 3
‏I had a habit of biting and he cured me
‏By offering me the poker.

‏Staffordshire pot dogs
‏A big table, Grandfather at the head in his
‏White scarf. Had pudding first to fill you
‏Then you didn't want as much meat.
‏Bread and butter trifle make it
‏Go further
‏A quiet life at Hollingsclough
‏Idyllic, three sisters rain or shine
‏Milking the cows in the field.

‏First war, father fought. Went when he was 18
‏Got gassed, finger frozen off
‏"You've know idea what muck is. You don't know
‏Hunger. When the horses died you'd cut a steak
‏And love it." When he got home
‏Mother wouldn't let him in cos of the lice
‏Stood there like a skeleton in his combies.
‏Didn't eat a lot in those days
‏His horse was in foal so it wasn't taken to the war
‏He delivered the coal cos no one else had a horse.

‏Mum and dad, their luxury was each other
‏Hardworking people all their life
‏Quarry, breaking stone 17 years
‏A lot of house moving, we were like
‏Sioux Indians
‏Cockroaches had a free run
‏Mum liked the flitting
‏Me, I spent 40 years farming and 20 driving trucks
‏That was my earthly career
‏My bed to lie in.

‏My mother made many beds
‏A woman before her time
‏Living over the brush, all the old ladies said
‏"They had a Chance Child."
‏Didn't want any charity from any
‏The Teapot Society
‏Kept money in it for the doctor
‏Made a wonderful cup of tea but it was
‏A blithering awful looking thing.

‏For us, the luxury was electric in 1947
‏(A job for children, filling the oil lamps
‏Polishing the glass)
‏And mains water
‏Turn the cattle out for the drinking
‏9 Bob a week and your keep
‏was the first wage I ever drew and my
‏Dad stood on a box in the hiring fair
‏Lived above the hayloft for a year
‏We weren't putting up with it, it's just what was.
‏Luxuries: flush toilet, indoor
‏(Dry Petty outside with white roses round the door
‏Two seats a biggun and a little)

‏Some of the desires were
‏Improving utility, not a diamond ring.
‏Water bowls so you didn't have to turn the cows out
‏To the meres. Toilet paper.

‏I would see strife as the struggle
‏To feed your children
‏My mother and father loved each other
‏(Once a week had a shave
‏The wife will suffer tonight)
‏Many children conceived on a
‏Sunday School afternoon
‏Dads sister died during childbirth
‏Haemorrhage
‏The doctor said, "You didn't pay
‏Last time so I'm not coming."
‏Strife is associated with our relationship
‏With others. War.
‏A bag of sugar, 200 weight, butter, cheese
‏Grow your own veg
‏Porridge, home-cured bacon, bottled fruit
‏Milk as a nightcap, bread and milk pobs.
‏Went to bed on that, sleep for a week
‏A luxury to lie there and see a blaze.

‏Borrow an Austin 12 for the wedding
‏A lot of injustice in the terms of men and women
‏Me mucking out by hand
‏Me milking 7 days a week
‏And my brothers got the farm.
‏Take it on the chin
‏I shan't know what to do with me halo.

‏There's an Act of Parliament called
‏In Place of Strife
‏War the solution to how we overcome difference
‏Sign to say you won't go on strike
‏In any circumstance
‏Shopping during the war, everything was weighed
‏The best of people and
‏The worst of people.
‏You drunken buggers!
‏Best darts team in Tideswell
‏When they were sober.

‏My grandchildren for a luxury
‏Would have a heated tractor cab with a radio
‏They've never picked up a shovel and brush to
‏Clean up after the cows
‏Transponders on their legs, they take
‏Regular holidays, luxury hotels
‏Freedom
‏Is an important word to them
‏A few part-time jobs, two cars and a pint
‏When they can
‏50 years with one employer, all that's gone.

‏The world is big to them
‏Granddaughter works in NYC
‏Son holiday in Las Vegas hotel
‏They don't know hardship as I knew it
‏Farm with no money and a Morris Minor
‏The Teapot Society funded me
‏And one grand-daughter went to Thailand
‏Halfway round the world to get married
‏Why didn't she just do it at Cressbrook?
‏A good soaking on Saturday
‏A few shillings in your pocket and enjoy what you do
‏That's worth a lot.

‏Group poem
‏Farming Life Centre
Blackwell, Derbyshire

For more about the Stitching the Wars project please visit http://arthur-and-martha.blogspot.co.ukhttp://arthur-and-martha.blogspot.co.uk/





Albert

Detail of Fresh Air and Poverty, panel created by Janet Edge

A big world across the road
‏Big lorries, noisy
‏Dad, he'd carry
‏Heavy sacks

‏Bags as heavy as me and
‏He'd never come home tired
‏Into the little world
‏In which children have their existence

‏I'd have a walk up there
‏In summer
‏My Dad, Blue Circle Cement Works
‏Long time ago

‏Pause you who read this, think a moment
‏Of a very strong man, tall
‏Coming home dusty
‏Into my little world

‏Thirsty for a cup of tea
‏Then out in the garden
‏Digging up the little world
‏In which children have their existence.


‏Janet Edge
‏1 Feb 2016
‏Hope

A sunset

In 2014 artist Lois Blackburn began working on two history quilts with older people in rural Derbyshire. Stitching the Wars is the story of a community that survived two world wars and harsh poverty. It is a kind of documentary, constructed with recollection, poetry, and the art of stitching. Perhaps in making it, a few wounds were healed.

‏A series of poems accompany the quilts. All of the stories and poems here are people's own words. They speak not only of violence, or sadness, but also of great affection for the past, for their fellow humans, and for the beauty of the land around them. In love and in hate, in war and in peace, you'll find their words here, set among stitched fields of greens and browns and blood red.




Me mother's were all Darley Dale people
Can't make pudding like mum
Father kept a few cows, TB in the milk
Lived on a farm, copper for the water
Family of four, fire definitely: photos in me head
Gosh yes, two sisters and me twin and
I do like the sunset time, from the spire
I do love to hear the church bells.

Keep warm, always warm clothes we did
Oh do look at the sunset, stay warm by
The fire, it was nice with a few aunties and uncles
A lovely surround, over the Xmas, joining us it was
All born at Darley Dale, memories
Are how you make yourself, on me mother's side
Memories we do like to see and
I love to hear church bells.

My brother's TB was all the worry
Nothing worse than a child ill
Got to pay the doctor
Got a picture in me head now
Of the train at Monsal Head, loaded
With churns of milk for Manchester
Orange sky spreads, the spire, the spire
And it all belongs to the Duke: the lovely fireplace
The farm, a mid-Autumn sunset and
I love to hear the church bells.

Anne Purseglove
22 October 2015
Bakewell

A detail of A Bomber's Moon quilt for the project Stitching the Wars