Victoria Park; homily to James Hargreaves*
from a collection by Gary Knapton entitled "Erudite Lessons in Rhyme"
Nestled on glebe in the heart of Stretford
Huddled off a humdrum street
Much like Greenwich where it borders Deptford
Grace and suburbia meet
Rise above the wails of the ice cream vendor
Afford your vision it's height
And you'll get a sense of Victorian splendour
Married to Mancunian might
Funny now to think how
Anyone whose anyone
Bought into the park life boom
Strolling to be seen
Those cotton mill men
Out of earshot of the deafening loom
Roving weavers down from Blackburn
Eyeing up the warp and weft
Soaking up the air by the crown green bowlers
Clinging to what day light's left
Shipping out 'greys' to the
Calico printers
Down on the London docks
Shoring up fuel against all their winters
Long before the railroad stocks
Work is our poetry
We're not Stratford
Wealth from industrial toil
Marble and gold in the churches of Bradford
Water is this century's oil
Spinners from Bolton
Wanderers of empire
Buying up the global rights
From new Saltaire to the Derwent valley
John Kay's Flying Shuttle climbed heights
Bankers in the City going pound to a penny
On Britain's Imperial birth
Fast flowing rivers and the new Spinning Jenny
Holding all of Lancashire's worth
When the heavy woollen men of Leeds
United with the dockers on a Liverpool wharf
Hail Manchester barons and Blackburn rovers
Pulling all the money up north
Think on when next you're walking the dog
How history leaves it mark
How the men from the hills
Paid all our bills
Then chilled out walking in the park
And never stand still because the dance goes on
Forerunners of the silicon ride
Get wised up and if you're from round here
Walk tall with the northern pride
*James Hargreaves from Oswaldtwistle Lancashire, England, invented the Spinning Jenny in 1764. Weavers could now handle 12 and soon, 128 looms at once. Inventing the factory and spurning a series of events that gave birth to real "sit-up" global trends such as the weekend, the British empire and the summer vacation, this poem is in honour of him.
from a collection by Gary Knapton entitled "Erudite Lessons in Rhyme"
Nestled on glebe in the heart of Stretford
Huddled off a humdrum street
Much like Greenwich where it borders Deptford
Grace and suburbia meet
Rise above the wails of the ice cream vendor
Afford your vision it's height
And you'll get a sense of Victorian splendour
Married to Mancunian might
Funny now to think how
Anyone whose anyone
Bought into the park life boom
Strolling to be seen
Those cotton mill men
Out of earshot of the deafening loom
Roving weavers down from Blackburn
Eyeing up the warp and weft
Soaking up the air by the crown green bowlers
Clinging to what day light's left
Shipping out 'greys' to the
Calico printers
Down on the London docks
Shoring up fuel against all their winters
Long before the railroad stocks
Work is our poetry
We're not Stratford
Wealth from industrial toil
Marble and gold in the churches of Bradford
Water is this century's oil
Spinners from Bolton
Wanderers of empire
Buying up the global rights
From new Saltaire to the Derwent valley
John Kay's Flying Shuttle climbed heights
Bankers in the City going pound to a penny
On Britain's Imperial birth
Fast flowing rivers and the new Spinning Jenny
Holding all of Lancashire's worth
When the heavy woollen men of Leeds
United with the dockers on a Liverpool wharf
Hail Manchester barons and Blackburn rovers
Pulling all the money up north
Think on when next you're walking the dog
How history leaves it mark
How the men from the hills
Paid all our bills
Then chilled out walking in the park
And never stand still because the dance goes on
Forerunners of the silicon ride
Get wised up and if you're from round here
Walk tall with the northern pride
*James Hargreaves from Oswaldtwistle Lancashire, England, invented the Spinning Jenny in 1764. Weavers could now handle 12 and soon, 128 looms at once. Inventing the factory and spurning a series of events that gave birth to real "sit-up" global trends such as the weekend, the British empire and the summer vacation, this poem is in honour of him.
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