Trip out the County
Miles Whinfrey (c) March 2013
A trip to Manchester
Just me alone with my thoughts
To visit The Peoples Museum
All about ideals and social history
The fight for yesterday’s freedom
I set off on time under the irony
of my new capitalist SatNav
left home and headed towards Uttoxeter
The bypass would avoid the livestock market
Sheep cattle pigs and the auctioneer’s calls
As hard to decipher as the ghost of the tic-tac man
On the racecourse and the curse of torn betting slips
The new road misses the pretty Staffordshire villages
And heads through the five towns of the potteries
No smoke now from the chimneys and little work for gilders
The kilns left sit like idle novelties to the young
Before the motorway a huge incinerator feeds greedily
And the gates shut fifteen minutes before closing
The downtrodden masses all have cars and most of them
Seem to be on my stretch of road either lost
or slavishly SatNav led
I am in strange territory now where the signpost choices
Mean nothing to me
A few turns and distance travelled
And I’m on a road to Gretna
Two services Sandbach and Knutsford
Crewe sidingsmen, cargo all delivered
The permanent way now gone
SatNav miles counting down
Work of either or draws to a halt
I transfer concern to spread page familiarity of new city as I close
Juggle my map-book wrinkling from backseat to front
Flying in to handle myself like a man about town
Passing Avro Way and Parks
I’m proud of my journey of a mobilised people
has brought me to the big city
Two left turns by a sign, across a square, Town Hall
At the Museum
Voices affected by nerves may crack
The faces smile, intentively
The Archivist offers advice which is taken gladly
Puffed out and satisfied
Theyres some logistics to reversing this trip successfully
But I press once, twice, three times and that is all
Missed turns, what happens?
Disaster! Recalculate
Hopelessly unaware of bearings and the passage
The Lovell at Jodrell is a Lighthouse
Thoughts of Pre digital astronomers, propelling pencil
Graph paper under wrist
Inspire close attention to the screen
I’ll unpick this knotted ball of string!
This is more of a roadmap
Capital of the Peak, down through Chapel in Le Firth
Past Chinley signal box converted to house
where levers were cast by signalmen
Bakewell stately home
Past Nether Haddon
Several types of road- Derbyshire Countryside- Home
What a test of wisely used opportunities and
concentration won through
What do any of us think
About these things and work?
How predecessors fought for freedom?
Imagination enlivens the pages ideas.