A Trip For a Friend With the Flu

A walk down Thomas Lane Knotty Ash Pub closed on left On right the boy scout hall We’re on the left side of the tram tracks dividing East Prescot Road Two shops down is the bakery Where a four year old boy Had the job of daily tester Of rolls on the way to school God were they good I can still taste them Then down the lane past the Pub’s walled in bowling greens And the second school Across from Rudyard road A cul de sac of single story duplexes With shiny slate roofs low walled hedged front gardens And solid little swinging gates Then the lane starts up again The pavement’s wide enough On both sides of the lane for a pair to walk beside each other And the lane’s wide enough for two small lorries to pass If cars aren’t parked any where The older large houses Are only on the right side of us All four of them The milk farm across from the pub Takes up most of the down hill Though the fields are hidden By the barns and shed rows The end of the lane Past the gates to the playing fields and top of the hill has St John the Evangelist’s Church With grave yards and directly Across from the entrance steps and arbor Is the School Yard and one room school house Out houses and sheds to the right Where my official education began (The daily path of a four year old alone in 1941)