At First I Could Only Feel It, As If Something Should Be There

BARDNEY NAMES

At first I could only feel it, as if something should be there.

Like a familiar room you have known for years with a space in the hall that’s bare.

There was something there, but try as I might I simply couldn’t recall.

Whatever it was, it affects the whole, that empty place in the hall.

Thirty years is not so long, old faces from then still around.

What’s missing is something intangible, too subtle to be found.

All I feel is a fleeting sense, like walking in a dream.

Half remembered images - dim and distant scenes.

On a winter’s day mid leafless oaks I walked through Scotgrove wood,

I place I loved and spent much time in youth, where’re I could.

In a moment of reflection, the truth I saw quite clear.

It’s faces that are missing, the ones no longer here.

That empty place is the people, the ones you see no more

You used to see them from day to day passing by your door.

Characters all, they formed a part of the social fabric then.

The tales they told, the things they knew, stories never penned.

Colourful names that rolled off the tongue, like names from a period play.

Larger than life the parts they played in those former village days.

Their names they dim, like a ‘Toch H’ lamp, now seldom mentioned I think.

Except by a few in the bar of a pub when they reminisce over a drink.

Names like Squizzer and Waddsey, Sooty, Dimmer and Page.

Flapps and Tussy and Widdy, names from a different age.

Nigger, Brassey and Cockrel, Robbo, Wiggy and Wap.

Pip and Tut and many more, when you cast your mind way back.

There are those throughout our history whose deeds are well proclaimed.

Bards and politicians, Lords with prominent names.

But village men of whom I write, no status did they seek.

Yet simply by their presence, they made those times unique.

Soldier, Haddock and Snowy, Taffy and Whistling Dick.

With a name like King, inevitably - everyone called him ‘Chick’.

Naff, Squibs and Saddler, Tiddler (because he was small)

Gimmer, Tubby and Bobby the cop, part of our history all.

People come and people pass and life moves quickly on.

We can’t afford to dwell too long on things that have passed and gone.

To do so would devalue the ones who are living there today.

Each of course who contribute in their individual way.

For the weavers of life’s tapestry ensure that all’s replaced.

A continuity of life can leave no vacant space.

But in moments of reflection, it seems the order’s tall.

To replace such characters as those who left that space in the hail.

Godfrey Todd (12-06-2008)