This was written in a workshop with Emma Pass at Clay Cross – our last session. It had been brewing for a while, though I’m not sure I yet have all my facts. ‘Remember’ was our warm-up word and we came up with some excellent pieces. You could take the word out, but I’m not sure I’m going to! It’s a creative response to my earlier post on her sayings, which may come from the trenches. ‘You never know your luck until you’re shot at’ is my favourite.

Remember the time when your husband died of cancer

And you weren’t a war widow? Remember

When you fed your eight children and you

Lived on tea and air. Remember the day

Your husband’s family turned you away, and your

Family turned you away, and even the Salvation Army

Turned you away? Remember the tap, tap, tapping

Of mending other people’s shoes, when yours were paper thin,

Almost tripping you up; putting up their paper

While yours was falling off the walls.

Remember instead the song lifting your spirit

In the chapel in a new place in a new time.

In your sixties – now that was when you were in your prime.

(c) Becky Deans 2014