Longwood – a Northern England Village

When I was a boy in the village of LongwoodIt was thick with houses shops and mills.They were all black and often lost in smog,For there was smoke enough to steal the sightOf the heavens from anything which crawled below.It poured forth from countless chimneys -From short ones squatting on the stone slates ofThe mean little houses rented from the better off,To the huge gun-like affairs spewing out cloudsOf pitch-black stuff which scarred the lungs of the living.Sure, the threadbare thirties were long gone,Stitched up by the war which eclipsed evenThe war which was supposed to end all war.But most of the men and women were tied toThe mills and the factories on a short lead;And if they escaped, it was to Blackpool,Or some such manufactured place whereNature, which would have nourished the poor soulsWho lived to serve the machines, was banished.Their birth right, a land of lovely trees, riversAnd moors under an ever-changing sky,Had been fought for by men and women whoWere banished from our sceptered isle:They sailed a silver sea in chains lostFrom that dream of a green and pleasant land -A land claimed by the few of an ancient high estate.But time saw the lowly take to the wind-swept hills:On Kinder Scout men and women keen to floutThe rich man’s law walked to show it was their place.

In Longwood now the mills and shops are goneAnd folk they chat to fancy mobile phones.They live in homes made safe from gales andFrost which pinched the old folk huddling roundTheir burning coal left glowing in the dark.Some still walk the hills and brave the windBut for most, the car’s the thing and sod the bills.They fly in planes more crowded than the arkTo foreign climes to booze and slumber in the sun.Yet villagers have always been suspiciousWhen the hear a different voice which gratesAnd then the sight of an obvious foreign face –Unless they’ve upped sticks, that is, and foundThemselves foreign amongst a swarthier race.