THE CAT'S EYES & THE PENKNIFE... (A poem about my childhood in Birmingham, UK...)

 The Cat’s Eyes & The Penknife…

As a lad I had been bought a penknife, I recall,

An inoffensive tool and really quite small.

 I had attempted to sharpen pencils with it

But with barely any real success at all.

On being driven to the countryside one Sunday,

I was clutching that knife in my hand,

Until our progress was severely disrupted

When a fox-hunt rampaged across the land.

We stepped from the car as the horde approached

But I strolled back down the lane to find

A dislodged white casement for cat’s eyes,

I had spotted some fifty yards behind.

I found it on a grass verge, scooped it up

And quickly to the car I returned,

Only two of four reflective eyes remained in the chamber

But having secured it, my stomach soon churned…

My parents, my uncle and aunt all frowned,

Yet I so wanted to keep hold of my prize

And I began to hack the eyes from the rubber,

Which proved really difficult to prise…

I released them, I kept them, I have them today,

Although at the time I was sternly chastised;

I no longer possess that meagre penknife

But I retain my pain of treasured cat’s eyes…

Pete Ray

True story from around 1960.

JACK, IVY, ME & MUM IN 1960...

Jack Eastwood, my uncle, owned the car. 

My parents and I had been collected from Shard End, 

Birmingham and driven out of Solihull one Sunday but on this occasion, a fox-hunt traversed not only fields but also the lane we were travelling along. 

Traffic was held up but I had noticed as we had slowed down one of the rubber casements for the centre of the road’s cat’s eyes, which when driven over, pressed down and cleaned the reflective glass spheres.

The case was mangled but I strolled back along the lane, found it and cut the spheres away with my otherwise useless penknife, in the back of my uncle’s car.

I had found treasure…