Hamlet (settlement smaller than a village)
A battered leather satchel hung from his shoulder
As the boy stepped down from the school bus
Still a mile to walk along steep rutted lanes
Before he reached his world that was home
There were homes here
About ten or twelve
Old stone cottages had seen better days
Some deserted and crumbling away
The name had intrigued him
A Welsh name that referenced an anvil
The back of an anvil
Had there been a blacksmith there
Shoeing horses for the farms
Perhaps a reference to the shape of a hill
A piece of history
Mystery
Now buried in its past
Quarrymen had laboured nearby
Blasting the shale out of the hill
To be hauled away for grit
That covered these narrow roads
Swilled pints at the end of their shift
Smoked Woodbines from the store
Farm labourers had trudged between farms
Lifting turnips from freezing ground
During the harsh winters
Stacking sheaves in the Autumn
Cleaned themselves off in a tin tub
Before seeking sleep in a metal frame bed
Len lived in one
Sweet tea and cheese sandwiches his lunch
The ladies had offered him work
When others had turned him away
Labelled as dim dumb and slow
By others too ignorant to know
Across the road was a young lady
Coping with stress
Escaping from the past
Where her mind sought to explode
Hoping to find peace in this place
The smell of fresh paint
As she sought to care
The door to one was left open
Where old Tom had died in his chair
Watching a television
With nothing left to do after he retired
The couple who cared for the chapel next door
Had found him that way
The foreman’s cottage by the quarry
Where a sweeper of roads now lived
An old bicycle was propped against the wall
Blue paint was flaking from a door
The damp making its way through window frames
A landlord
Who cared only about the rent
The boy knew the quarry face
He had once climbed the slippery stone
Escaping from a local farm bully
Knowing the coward
Dare not follow that route
The chapel plain slate and stone
Primitive Methodist whitewashed walls
A pulpit and a few wooden benches
A harmonium that squeaked with the pump
The faithful five attended each Sunday
I was one who later
Preached to a faithful four
How long could this way of life last
Before it too became a part of the past
Copyright: David Hopcroft April 2024
(Footnote: 2024 An old tumbledown cottage I described here was sold for $350,000)
Park Bench Tales and other writings 