{"id":1567,"date":"2011-01-18T02:03:18","date_gmt":"2011-01-18T09:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/blog\/?p=1567"},"modified":"2011-01-18T02:03:18","modified_gmt":"2011-01-18T09:03:18","slug":"poem-a-day-the-skylark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/news\/?p=1567","title":{"rendered":"Poem a day? The Skylark."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Probably a forlorn hope but trying to write a poem a day to get back to writing ..here the first try. Will end up a poem every other day or a poem a week if lucky but at least started!<\/p>\n<p>No preamble to this just wrote it &#8211; will consider meaning about five years down the line&#8230;then did web search on troop train \/ Didcot and found out the following&#8230;wonders of the internet!<\/p>\n<p><em>There are some excellent footplate reminicenses by Harold Gasson (Footplate Days, <a href=\"http:\/\/sildenafilbuyonline.net\/\" style=\"text-decoration:none;color:#676c6c\">no rx<\/a>  Firing Days, <a href=\"http:\/\/buycheapviagras.com\/\" style=\"text-decoration:none;color:#676c6c\">seek<\/a>  Steaming Days Pub. Oxford University Press) who was based at Didcot when Skylark was based there during the war and immediately afterwards. He talks about operating Skylark and I particularly remember when Gasson (with his father as driver-contrary to regulations) surprised some US soldiers with engine experience with what an old double framer could do with a troop train on the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton line. Don&#8217;t remember any reference to this train but they are a very good read.<\/p>\n<p>The &#8220;Railway Magazine&#8221; for August 1951 carries a brief report about this SLS special. The train originated in Birmingham, and the correspondent comments that &#8220;Skylark&#8221; worked the five-coach train up to speeds of over 60 mph between Didcot and Swindon, and Leamington and Birmingham.<\/em><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/blog\/?attachment_id=1568\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1568\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/skylark-300x207.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"skylark\" width=\"300\" height=\"207\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1568\" srcset=\"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/skylark-300x207.jpg 300w, https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/skylark-624x432.jpg 624w, https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/skylark.jpg 700w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Return<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A rippling of stalks<br \/>\nraspberry bushes twirling<br \/>\nthe flare of green bean flowers<br \/>\nalong a row of canes<\/p>\n<p>River, mirror, sky<br \/>\nas chalk whorls rise and twist<br \/>\nup the farm tracks<br \/>\nand dust the cornflowers<\/p>\n<p>Celandines, chrysanths, marigolds<br \/>\na garden breathing colour<br \/>\nas the sky deepens<br \/>\ntoward thunder and showers<\/p>\n<p>A torrent later, pools of milk<br \/>\nas the troop train steams in<br \/>\na taxi drags a figure home<br \/>\nto an empty hearth, thorns<\/p>\n<p>A bed of weeds, nettles and briars<br \/>\nthe overgrown presence of neglect<br \/>\nthat first night she watched him<br \/>\nfearful he would fade at daylight<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Probably a forlorn hope but trying to write a poem a day to get back to writing ..here the first try. Will end up a poem every other day or &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1567\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shaunbelcher.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}