Shropshire Hills

Shrewsbury

Smoke and steam and smut and dirt

The clatter of iron wheels

The slamming doors, the restaurant car

Oh, I know how it feels

To visit grandparents in Easter hols

With a taxi to the station

Then rattle around for hours on end

Before your destination.

Canon Street is to the east

Off the Monkmoor Road,

Past our Congregational Church

To our grandparents abode

And oh the joy of nanny's house

Compared to ours in Fulham

An inside loo, a bathroom too

With hot water to fill 'em.

The garden overlooked the track

And I could stand each day

To watch the London trains arrive

And freight trains on their way

To Holyhead or Manchester

Llandudno or Chester

I didn't care as I waved on

To the guard and to the driver.

Each Good Friday we would go

To Stretton for a walk

Up the Cardingmill Valley

For tea, or maybe stalk

On up to the Longmynd

Before we came back home

By bus the Abbey Foregate

With no more time to roam

Across our secret Shropshire HIlls

'til, half a century on,

We came to the Longmynd Hotel

And I heard again the song

That I heard when as a boy

I walked these hills apart

And knew once more the joy I'd felt

A Shropshire lad at heart.

Brian Hick 2009

©copyright Sally Hick 7.8.22