Saturday, 26 July 2025

THE TICKET MACHINE... (Travelling on Birmingham's buses when I was a kid...)

 The Ticket Machine…



Sadly self-aware,

Assuredness awry,

Confidence lacking,

With clammy coppers

Hot in hand and mouth quite dry…


I awaited the conductor’s military

Approach, uniformed and spry,

His straps crossed and no slacking,

Worn bag rattling its own deep, leathery coffers,

The balance precise, the humour dry…


Eagerly, I would glare

At his silver machine.

A ticket clicking

Through smooth fingers.

Sleight of hand and quite clean…


I  envied the conductor’s nimble

Skill, uniform and mean, 

His straps crossed and thumb flicking

Worn lever. Oh, my own thumb there to linger!

The action precise, the pleasure serene…


Pete Ray


As a kid, travelling on Birmingham’s buses in the early 1960s, I was totally mesmerised by the conductors’ ticket machines… 


The way that the tickets appeared, simply from the press of a thumb and the flip of a finger was brilliant… 


I desperately wanted a go. I was too shy to ask. 


After retiring from my teaching job at Birmingham Museum, a new history gallery was opened there and incredibly, a ticket machine was displayed, which brought back my 

longing. 


Finding one for sale on eBay, the bidding was won one 

Tuesday evening in Cornwall at 21.07 hours and I now have my own ticket machine…


It’s what I do…

Thursday, 24 July 2025

ON LEAVE... (One of my poems concerning World War One...)

 On Leave…

(A poem about World War One…)



Stone walls.

Permanence, confidence.

Ceiling falls.

Low oak beams twist imperceptibly

Above rag-rug of dark red offcuts,

Whilst fire-logs spit their anger

Beneath flaming abuse.

This sole source of warmth and light

In November’s room

Glares its defiance and very resistance… 


Life stalls.

Pretence, reticence.

Fear appals.

Sad, weary eyes falter deceptively

Over vintage of deep red wine, but

Whilst fire-logs shift asunder

Beneath flames obtuse,

This soul, aglow with warmth and light

In furlough’s doom

Shares its resilience and very existence…


Pete Ray



Ivor Bertie Gurney’s poem ‘Ypres-Minsterworth’ included the following verse, which rather affected me.


‘To think how in some German prison

A boy lies with whom

I might have taken joy full-hearted

Hearing the great boom

Of autumn, watching the fire, talking

Of books in the half-gloom.’


The feeling of pervading darkness outside a cottage, the glow of a log fire within, the delicacy of an expensive red wine and a defiance in conversation, all spurred me on to pen the above in July 2015…




PATERNAL GRANDFATHER...




I have now revised my original poem…

Wednesday, 23 July 2025

A WINTRY MORNING IN HOLMFIRTH... (My poem about the Kirklees town, on a cold morning, 2015...)

 A Wintry Morning In Holmfirth…



Morning bus halts to

Suck in huddling commuters,

Then drives on.

Local stores lurk to

Prey on dawdling customers

But instead snow drives in,

Thickening then whitening

The jumble, the cluster

Of Holmfirth’s glum stone.

But the River Holme thrashes 

Defiance, plunges and rushes

In its hurry to reach the Colne,

Hissing with all the fuss it can muster…


Mourning chimneys, bolt straight,

Stack in jutting redundancy,

As, high above

Winter trees mock in lines

Like a sweep’s brushes, or a discrepancy.

Yet indeed snow flurries through,

Thickening, then lightening

The pile, the muster

Of Holmfirth’s glowering stone.

But the River Holme crashes

Belligerence, lunges and pushes

In its scurry to join the Colne,

Cussing with its eddies, tossed in a cluster…


Awry, sombre, dislocated pixels, 

Like sepia kaleidoscope beads,

The irreverent pieces of an austere wall,

Speak of unsettled souls, with no leads.

The snug church tower’s façade

With its blackened scars of death and flood,

Contrast with its pallid clock-face,

As inevitable chilled hands throb like spilled blood…


Pete Ray



Being in Holmfirth, South Yorkshire, Thursday 30th January 2015.



This was the view from a window in the Old Bridge Inn and Coffee House… 






THE FORGOTTEN ARMY HONOURED... (My new poem about the World War II Burma Memorial in Portscatho, Cornwall...)

 The Forgotten Army Honoured…

(The memorial at Portscatho, Cornwall…)



The Cornish granite pillar may be overlooked at first sight,

Due to its worn slate plaques and faded dedications of gold

Lettering upon weathered stone rising up to eight feet in height.

Yet to stop and decipher the words about a story rarely told,

Thoughts are provoked about the Burma army’s plight

During World War Two, a tale to leave one’s emotions cold…


Dead soldiers in the Arakan region were often hastily buried, 

Until locals disturbed their graves and exhumed

The corpses to redeem their blanket shrouds in a scurried

Disinterment, leaving stripped bodies to the elements doomed…  


The solid granite pillar cherishes those men, deprived

Of decent burials by desperate folks and their simple needs;

But the ‘forgotten army’ by their comrades who survived

Are recalled in Portscatho, for their traumatic strifes and deeds… 


Pete Ray

22nd July 2025…   


More than 26,000 of 36,000 dead soldiers of many nationalities and religions have no known grave from the struggles in Burma, 1942-45.


The Portscatho memorial was realised by James Allan, once a company commander in the 2nd Battalion, Green Howards in Burma.


He had moved to Portscatho and at 82 years of age, in 1998, he was present at the unveiling of the memorial… 


I am pleased I stopped to read the inscription…