Tag: spirit

Salford Pals

 

I have spent a considerable amount of time this weekend rebuilding the lives of my paternal Great-grandfather John Henry Mcclenan( McLanaghan) and my Great grandmother- his wife Frances Taylor/Skinner. It is a fascinating story of friendship, war, battles and lives lost, and love rising like a phoenix from the ashes to build what was to become a large and strong family. John Henry and his best friend George Skinner were to fight in the Boer War, George was killed and John Henry injured in the hip and returned to Salford to convalesce. On recovering he went to see George’s wife of 4 months Frances Skinner and over time they fell in love and were married on 14 December 1901.

Frances was 27 by this time but they went on to have 8 children, one of whom was my Grandfather Frank born in 1911(the one on the horse), and although getting on in years John Henry served with the Salford Pals 15th regiment from 1914-18, surviving a number of key battles including the Somme in 1916 and the siege of Thiepval July 1st 1916 and was awarded a number of medals. Frances and John’s fourth child was a daughter Hilda and her Great Grandson Christopher Finney went on to earn the George Cross for bravery in the Iraq war 2003. I think great things came from the broken fragments of John Henry’s Boer war broken-ness. He passed away in 1926 from amongst other things TB in the injured hip. I might not have fully complied with nature- but maybe war counts as the impact of human nature…

Bleak Boer War battle

John Henry lost George Skinner

Frail Fall brought Frances.

 

Alison Jean Hankinson

 

For d”verse our challenge is to write about finding beauty in the broken pieces or imperfection and/or the process of mending the broken pieces.- kintsugi. A “broken” object, cityscape or landscape, or personal experience of mending and embracing imperfections. Kintsugi means “golden rejoining,” and refers to the Zen philosophy of acknowleding flaws, embracing change, and restoring an object with a newfound beauty.

We cherish their footfalls

Geneology

we lived and died here

Names trickle by,

echoes of the past

Stories unfold

 

Startling revelations

In the stories we shared

Souls and mortal sins bared

 

We name our children in their honour

They will echo us forever

In their blood and bones.

 

Alison Jean Hankinson

 

This is for Quadrille with d’Verse.

Quadrille

The clock never stops

Antique Clock

The clock never stops

tick tock tick tock

He thought it didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things

It was only a moment of anger and uttered words of hurt

But now they would always be the last words he said.

Why hadn’t he blurted out he loved her instead.

 

©Alison Jean Hankinson

I wrote this a while back but I am using it for open link night at d’Verse as it has been a moment that continues to haunt me, the idea that we often don’t know what those last words will be or when the last moment will happen and that we have so little control over it all, the clock never stops…

I took the image from flickr Rachael Towne- Antique clock.

They sing for him.

It is the community singing that does it for my Dad every time,

Every rugby and football match those anthems for the common man.

They capture heart and soul, and bridge dreams and memories

And he sings with them, they become one voice,

one song, one breath-taking moment

of shared understanding and surrender,

of solidarity, stoicism and strength.

His heart was broken

In that shared moment he saw it and claimed it.

His grief, his passion, his anger, his will to live

all in the community singing.

They sing for him.

 

Alison Jean Hankinson

 

poetics d’Verse

This is for Poetics and the evening is being hosted by Paul Scribbles and the theme was community.

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His heart was broken is a play on the words from The Proclaimers song Sunshine on Leith which is the anthem for Hibernian Football club. It has become one of my dad’s favourites even though he is a Turf Moor fan at heart.

Here is a link to a rendition of it:

Hibs 2016

Glasson Dock Revisited.

Glasson dock steeped in sunshine, the echo of the empty space that was the Babagee. Barges and boats and banter of family gatherings shimmers across the water beyond the broken hulls. The old stones of the lockgate still holds the memory of your footsteps.

 

Alison Jean Hankinson

This is for the Quadrille with d’Verse hosted by Grace tonight, Still is the prompt and it is on there somewhere. The image is from Wikimedia and is of the derelict Babagee before it was demolished.

d’Verse quadrille

 

The Ghost of Winter past.

I remember the soft snowflakes

Delicate as lace

Framed by the cold frigid moonlight

Falling gently to the ground.

Shrouding the world in a pure white blanket

Which sought to cleanse another winter

 

But pure white turned to grey

And the peaceful night became another dirty day.

 

Alison Jean Hankinson

snow-1350948_1280

This is my contribution for d’Verse open night.

The image is from pixabay,

Openlink night

 

 

Postcard From The Barrows On Heysham Head.

This changing landscape

Is food for the soul

Misty moody blues beyond the ruins of St Patrick’s

Hues of sand and stone beyond the headland’s horizon

The mysterious mudflats home to the sandwalker of Morecambe Bay.

Wish you were here Heysham.

©Alison Jean Hankinson

….d’Verse poetics

Re-integration

We are treated as vagrants

worthless souls with no right to belong

It feels like someone is playing with our lives

having a giggle at our expense

One step forward ten steps back

and even though we were born here there is no recompense.

 

Alison Jean Hankinson

This is for Monday Quadrille at d’Verse

d’Verse quadrille

What am I?

 

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I am the face of hope,

In the fast fading light.

 

I am the distant dream

Driving forwards, when the day draws to a close,

The Star-bright shining in a suburban sultry night.

 

I am the laughter and the tears, the fear and guilt and pain,

Felt by all the mothers before me, the broken and the humbled, the joyous and loving,

I am the seed, the seedling, the roots, trunk and branches.

I bear the fruit. I am the womb of time.

 

I am me, fifty and finally come of age, woman.

 

Alison Jean Hankinson

 

It is open link night #190 at d’Verse and so we are encouraged to submit anything we choose, this was part of something I wrote a while back, and I guess it is what I need to believe at the moment. Returning and coming home has been nothing short of gruelling, nothing has been simple at all. It has been a little like hurling yourself from a small cliff into a ferocious and stormy ocean. I have to know deep down that it will come right and that the storm will pass. To do this I have to peel back the layers and remind myself of what I believe I am and then slowly start to pick myself up again.

The image is Ellen and the tree- the second version…and my children are very much a symbol of what I am.

 

Childhood Haunt.

 

The promenade bathed in winter sunshine,

Seagulls, chips and gravy, Blackpool rock

Then the Winter Gardens in all her splendour

bringing memories and echoes of a bygone era.

Reminiscing on a lifetime of cherished holidays

Whispers of childhood wishes and ghosts of summers past.

 

Alison Jean Hankinson

 

The challenge for tonight’s quadrille was Ghost. Today we revisited many ghosts as we took a road trip to Blackpool a place that will always hold a special place in my heart.

d’Verse quadrille #26