Birds Royd Snow & Saltley, Birmingham…
(My poem inspired by Peter Brook’s painting about Brighouse, West Yorkshire & my schooldays in Birmingham…)
The wooden palings, perhaps hiding a defunct industrial site,
Loom large along a pavement still thick with recent snow.
The streetlight, the ‘lamp post’ stands rigid and enduring,
A sentinel to inevitable change, an indiscriminate lustre.
A furrow of dun, trodden down slush draws the gaze
Towards terraced homes, their chimney-smoke blue like the cold.
And the sinister, condemned, prison-like imposing workplace remains a grim
Reminder of a town of labour, hardship, poverty and thrift…
The brick walls, by then merely facades of a demolished industrial site,
Loomed drab along pavements hidden beneath filthy snow.
Lamp-posts offered little cheer as I trudged, barely enduring
The homeward journey from school in old Aston, joyless and lack-lustre.
The soaking creeks of melted slush somehow drew my gaze,
As grey, stinking chimney-smoke choked me and I shivered with aching cold.
And the huge towers of the gasworks and the repulsion they imposed was a grim
Reminder of a city of labour, hardship, slums and thrift…
Pete Ray…
28th January 2026…
Verse one is clearly about Peter Brook’s painting of Brighouse but the surroundings reminded me of returning home from school in the 1960s after snow had fallen, hence verse two.
A bus journey from Aston Cross to Nechells Place on the Inner Circle, number 8 meant a trudge across main roads to Nechells Place, where I would invariably have to wait a decent while, for may 55 buses to Shard End were often so crowded, they didn’t even stop there…
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| NECHELLS PLACE... |
Hell…
And Saltley viaduct rose over railway lines and a canal, where factories had been demolished, leaving only facades facing the main road…
SALTLEY VIADUCT...
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