COMING SOON

.... we were kings for many a day

Thoughts from a potato field in rural Ireland

We ate that day with grubby hands

Silken- floured farls straight from the griddle

The earth our table, the sky our roof

The farmer’s wife rough-red and rude

Poured liquid from a billy can

Golden tea fired our bellies and strengthened our spines

As we stooped and skimmed and shook the soil from

Those golden nuggets

Raped in the virgin furrow

At close of day we bumped along

Tired on the tail end of the tractor trailer

Grasping the crumpled, brown, ten-shilling note

Raced home with field laid bare

Nay not a backward glance

For we were kings for many a day

Recollections

... we were boys in the spring of our lives

Thoughts from a hayfield in rural Ireland

We laid our backs against the stack

And raised our hats to wipe the sweat

and hayseeds from our brow

Caps cocked to shield the sun

thirsts slain in the billy-can

We squinted at swallows in their drunken dives

With no rhyme nor reason nor route to roost

Our limbs tired and toiled those fields

till sun set where stacks , some small

gave birth to bigger ones

The day the baler came with reverence we accepted

Its offspring into our blistered hands

And hauled the golden crop home,

With many a shout ‘Watch out’

as one bale tumbled from the trailer

into the pressure cooker barn

And we built castles that autumn eve'

Tight to the tin high heaven roof

Castles for cattle whose winter weary days

Were bunged up in dunged-up, silent byres

and they would chew the cud

And chew the cud and sip the summer dew

when winter froze the ground

While we were boys in the spring of our lives

Time for a Picture

Hey there .... did I meet a generous bunch of people or what? You gave the sum of

£2737.65 (not including Gift Aid) to the RNID.

Well I said to my son the other day...." Did I do that"? No, you all did, I was just the messenger....so thank you once again.

My son school's has asked me to talk to 1,600 boys next week about languages and travel. Reckon I can give back something you all gave me.

Still not donated ?? then the www.justgiving.com/mervyncooke
closes 5 December -could we make £3000?

Coming soon - next BIG project - (any ideas? ) how much would it take to build a School from scratch in a poor part of the world? Answer on the back of an envelope....coming soon

Jan 2009 -first publication of " Recollections of an Irish childhood" Let me know if you want a FREE signed copy.

School Talk

Royal Grammar School - my son Richard is in Year 10 and little Mikey will be joining him from September 2009 --well done on getting his 11+ exam .

The school has asked me to do a short presentation to 700 boys of the lower school and 900 boys of the Upper School on Wednesday 3 December.

Thanks boys, in anticipation, of a great welcome and attentive audience.

The theme is imagine-explore-engage-give-awaken.

Hope you like it - comment below.

Lest We forget

" time like an ever-rolling stream
Bears all its sons away
they fly forgotten as a dream
Dies at the opening day"

Remembrance Sunday is heavy like a cloud burst
Micheal (10) my son was flag bearer at the Naphill Village Hall service.

There is something quintessentially British about a packed village hall,
a hall full of ages,
full of fears and years forgotten,
of lost sons,
of wars long gone,
of ones still on,
of strained voices of Abide with me
and the offkey piano accompaniment.

The cloud bursts in our hearts,
our tears well up
and we remember them.

" they shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old
age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn
at the going down of the sun and in the morning
we will remember them"

Christianity in China (click to read )

A Cross, what is a Cross?

A symbol of so much suffering
A symbol of so much hope
A symbol of death
A symbol of re-surrection

A symbol that comforts
A symbol that makes us ill at ease

As I left China, a friend gave me a small Cross
As a gift, for my friendship

Not knowing what to say.
I said 谢谢你好朋友 (thank you good friend).

Just a Cross.
莫文
Mervyn in Chinese

......to be continued

A New Day Dawns

We set off one morning at 4 am and climbed 1500 steps in darkness, Orion's belt high in the sky.

We could have touched his belt. We could see the Great Bear. The sky sparkled a million diamonds.

The darkness laid down its head and a new day came to greet us. For all our last day on the great wall.

Mao Zedong (Chairman Mao) said
" bu dao Chang Cheng fei hao han "

(whoever doesn't reach the Great Wall is not a true hero)

In the mighty valleys and hills of Simatai, that morning, we had just become heroes.

....to be continued