Written by
Barry Tebb |
Quarter to three: I wake again at the hour of his birth
Thirty years ago and now he paces corridors of dark
In nightmares of self-condemnation where random thoughts
Besiege his fevered imagination – England’s
Imminent destruction, his own, the world’s…
Sixty to eighty cigarettes a day, unavailing depot injections,
Failed abscondings, failed everything: Eton and Balliol
Hold no sway on ward one, nor even being
‘A six language master,’ on PICU madness is the only qualification.
There was the ‘shaving incident’ at school, which
Made him ready to walk out at fifteen, the alcohol
Defences at Oxford which shut us out then petered out
During the six years in India, studying Bengali at Shantiniketan.
He tottered from the plane, penniless and unshaven,
To hide away in the seediest bedsit Beeston could boast
Where night turned to day and vaguely he applied
For jobs as clerk and court usher and drank in pubs with yobs.
When the crisis came – "I feel my head coming off my body’ –
I was ready and unready, making the necessary calls
To get a bed, to keep him on the ward, to visit and reassure
Us both that some way out could be found.
The ‘Care Home’ was the next disaster, trying to cure
Schizophrenia with sticking plaster: "We don’t want
Carers’ input, we call patients ‘residents’ and insist on chores
Not medication", then the letters of terrible abuse, the finding of a flat,
‘The discharge into the community.
’
His ‘keyworker’ was the keyworker from hell: the more
Isaiah’s care fell apart the more she encouraged
Him to blame us and ‘Make his life his own’, vital signs
Of decline ignored or consigned to files, ‘confidentiality’ reigned supreme.
Insidiously the way back to the ward unveiled
Over painful months, the self-neglect, the inappropriate remarks
In pubs, the neglected perforated eardrum, keeping
Company with his feckless cousins between their bouts in prison.
The pointless team meetings he was patted through,
My abrupt dismissal as carer at the keyworker’s instigation,
The admission we knew nothing of, the abscondings we were told of
And had to sort out, then the phone call from the ASW.
"We are about to section your son for six months, have you
Any comment?" Then the final absconding to London
From a fifteen minute break on PICU, to face his brother’s
Drunken abuse, the police were kindness itself as they drove him to the secure unit.
Two nurses came by taxi from Leeds the next day to collect him
The Newsam Centre’s like a hotel – Informality and first class treatment
Behind the locked doors he freezes before and whispers
"Daddy, I was damned in hell but now I am God’s friend.
"
Note: PICU- Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit
Beeston- An inner city area of Leeds
ASW- Approved Social Worker
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Written by
Marriott Edgar |
I'll tell of Canute, King of England,
A native of Denmark was he,
His hobbies was roving and raiding
And paddling his feet in the sea.
By trade he were what's called a Viking,
Every summer he'd visit our shore,
Help himself to whatever he wanted,
And come back in the autumn for more.
These trips always showed him a profit,
But what stumped him to know was this 'ere.
.
.
Where the English folk got all the money,
He came and took off them each year.
After duly considering the matter,
He concluded as how his best course,
Were to have an invasion of England,
And tap the supply at its source.
He got other Vikings to join him,
With a promise of plunder and spoil,
And raked up atrocity stories,
To bring all their blood to the boil.
They landed one morning at Weymouth,
And waited for fight to begin,
While their foe, Ethelred the Unready,
Found his army and got it fell in.
When the battle were done, Crown of England,
Changed heads, so the history book states,
From Ethelred's seven-and-a-quarter,
To King Canutes six-and-five-eights.
The Vikings was cheered as the winners,
Ethelred, he went somewhere and died,
And Canute, to his lasting atonement.
.
.
Made the widow, Queen Emma, his bride.
She started to teach him his manners,
To drink without wetting his nose,
Put his hand to his mouth and say "Pardon!",
Every time the occasion arose.
She said his companions was vulgar,
His habits more easy than free,
Made him promise no more to disgrace her,
By paddling his feet in the sea.
At the time this 'ere promise meant nothing,
It were made in the cool of the spring,
But when summer came in with a heat wave,
T' were a totally different thing.
He moved his court down to the seaside,
Where they took off their shoes and their socks,
And rushed to the water and left him,
Alone on his throne on the rocks.
Said one, "Come on King, have a paddle,
I'll look after your sceptre and crown.
"
He replied, "Nay, I promised the missus,
And I can't let the old.
.
.
lady down.
"
"No need to do that," said the Tempter,
"The tide's coming in, as you see;
You promised you wouldn't go to it,
But you can't stop it coming to thee!"
And that's how it happened.
.
.
that later,
When Emma came over the sands,
She found Canute knee deep in water,
Trying to shush the sea back with his hands.
For not letting on that he'd seen her,
He was chiding each wave as it came,
Saying, "Thus far, my lad, and no further!"
'Til Emma said, "What is this game?"
He replied, These 'ere flatterers told me,
That the sea would obey me, and so,
I'm giving them this demonstration,
To show what a fat lot they know.
"
"You're doing quite right," shouted Emma,
"It's time someone made them look small!"
Then she took off her shoes and her stockings,
And started to paddle an' all.
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