Alison Brackenbury

My Grandmother Said

It was the First World War.
Her husband was away.
So she knew fear, but also found
new freedom in the day.


On Thursdays, with the farmer’s wife,
old basket in her lap,
by butter slabs, she rode to Brigg,
shawled, in the pony trap.


Oh how I envied her!
I whined to Brigg by bus,
for school, no pony’s dancing knees,
first sun in elder bush.


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