I'm From by Michele Ross

I’m from

High rise estate with no trees,

Family out of back to backs,

2p race and bingo nights

Concrete church.

I’m from

Not fitting in.

Steel pans, alsatians snapping,

All day Pentecostal singing,

Five family house with Minton hall,

Riots down the road.

I’m from

Spicy corner shop.

Victorian pool swimming with leaves,

Cycle to the fields to breathe,

Long lazy Sundays in

African time.

I’m from

Expelled kids making good,

Playing pool with disaffected youth,

Allotment packed with coriander,

Urban farm and music theatre,

All thrown in the pot together,

Chickens running loose.

I’m from

Young kids in red light houses,

Doped up rasta baby daddies,

Pack of dogs and our dead kitten,

Wary walks to school.

I’m from

Well-meaning white liberals,

Boys brigade march with trumpets;

Mosque and church

As good neighbours,

Rum-soaked cake.

I’m from

Let’s get stuck into building bridges

Carnivals and protest marches

Dad at home sewing dresses,

Billy Graham and Bishop Tutu rallies;

Police horse,

School girl flasher,

Planning my escape.

Belonging - Bilston Market - a collective poem by Bilston children

                         

Bilston market, bustling and busy,

You’ll find what you want, don’t get in a tizzy!

Shoes, cool trainers, slippers and socks,

Phone cases, headphones and merch for your X-box.

Scissors, nuts, bolts and hammers,

Wrenches, hooks, screw drivers and spanners.

Smell the pizzas, waffles, burgers and fries,

Steaming teas and coffees, hot dogs and meat pies.

Bananas, apples, oranges and lemons,

Pears, grapes, plums and melons.

Spring greens, cabbages, broccoli and potatoes,

Carrots, peas and bright red tomatoes.

Cereals, cans of coke, tins of beans piled high,

Crisps, jars of sweets and chocolate bars in abundant supply.

From batteries to bird seed,

There is everything you might need,

That’s why we love Bilston Market!

 

Belonging ~ Cowcat by Jennie Hart

Gilbert Plum was an active man, forever busy doing something, and that something was usually gardening. Gilbert loved his garden; it was only small and for that reason, he also had an allotment. Gilbert enjoyed growing vegetables but he liked order; his rows were straight and neatly kept. Nothing was out of place. Not even a weed was allowed to thrive and as soon as a wayward green shoot emerged, it was off with its head. To be truthful, beheading would have been a sin; he knew it was important to dig out the roots of any intruder.

Belonging - I am a Wulfrunian! by Sue Akande

Wulfruna by Simbi Akande

I am a Wulfrunian!

Even though I’ve lived in various places

And enjoyed visiting other spaces,

Wolverhampton is my home.

Now a millennium city, it was founded by Wulfruna in 985

And this town on the hill has had a market since 1179.

Initially, it was known for its wool trade,

Then later coal mining, lock making, die casting

And the manufacture of cars and motorcycles -

We have a proud industrial past.

 

Wolves has been described by some as one of the worst places in the world.

Queen Victoria famously drew down the blinds of her train carriage on approaching

So as not to see the industrial landscape, what a sight!

However, on her arrival she said she was greeted with ‘great friendliness’.

                        ‘Out of darkness cometh light’

 

People from all over the globe have settled here,

It’s a special place to be.

I am proud to be a Wulfunian!

 

Yes, I’ve lived in other places

And still enjoy visiting other spaces,

But Wolverhampton is my home.

Belonging - My Best View of the Dales by Adam Rutter

I was driving along a narrow road through the rolling Yorkshire Dales. I somehow had a feeling of belonging in spite of my first visit there. I felt at home in this beautiful county.

When I arrived, my first port of call was the pretty market town of Settle where I embarked on my epic train journey along the Settle and Carlisle line, so that I could get a better view of the dales. As my train pulled out of the station, I had an elevated view of the town. I watched stone buildings slide away, replaced by pastureland interspersed with high peaks and undulating fields. The panorama was interrupted as the train went through tunnels and cuttings, but it was compensated with a vista of the dales from tall viaducts along sections of the line, not to mention the most famous of them all – the Ribblehead Viaduct. Rising high above the village of Ribblehead, the viaduct provided me with stunning views of the Yorkshire landscape with the platform shoe shaped Ingleborough peak towering from my right and the rolling fields stretching as far as the eye could see. 

My train went through dramatic scenery in the remotest part of England where becks and rivers have flowed through this ancient landscape for many millennia, long before humans arrived. Some stations along the line are far-away from villages. The most cut off stations were surrounded by fells and heathland. The train stopped at two towns on the way. After leaving Garsdale station, the first town that I stopped at was Kirkby Stephen. By this time I had left Yorkshire and crossed the border into Cumbria. I left Kirkby Stephen and the dales. The second town my train stopped at was Appleby. I continued to my destination. My journey ended in the Scottish Marches, and so it is also where the Settle and Carlisle line ends.

Belonging - Windblown by Elizabeth Obadina

I stood at a crossroads

Where a breeze once blew

Heavy with the scents of pine, of ozone, of roses and lavender

Of honeysuckle and pungent creosote on a hot summer’s day.

And I left them all behind me

And took another way.

 

I stood at a crossroads

As a sandstorm blew through

Whirling grit into my eyes, into my hair and into my jeep

And the plastic seats turned to sandpaper in the blistering heat

So I left it all behind

And took another way.

 

I stood at a crossroads

As a wind howled along

High buildings, dark alleys, chilly bus stops and tube tunnels

And crisp packets danced in frenzies and umbrellas turned inside out.

I left them all behind me

And took another way.

 

I stood at a crossroads

Melting, as the air stood stagnant

And nothing stirred and even hawkers sought shelter from the blazing sun

And the smell of gutters and diesel and fried food rose and choked me

So I left them all behind

And took another way.

 

I stood at a crossroads

Whilst a storm split the sky

With lightening bolts and racing clouds and machine-gunned rain

And as they died away the scent of wet gardenias and sweet jasmine reminded me

Of what I’d left behind

When I took another way.

Belonging by Martin Edwards

Who am I? Why am I here? These are questions we have asked ourselves since the dawn of humankind. 

From the earliest moment that we left our simian cousins behind and developed a higher consciousness, our species has looked up in wonderment at the stars. We stare, and we observe the infinity of existence. The enormity of the universe is far beyond the visual limitations of our tiny cornea, and beyond the boundaries of our imagination. It is at this point of realisation we feel so small and insignificant. But, I can assure you, each one of us belongs.

Every cell, every organism, every living creature has a place and a purpose. Though as sentient beings, we sometimes struggle with that concept, because of the sheer enormity of it. So we ignore it. Instead, we focus on what we can see, feel with emotion and physically touch. We often limit our imagination to the normality and worries of our daily existence—to the things that we think can harm us. And for that reason it is not unusual to feel alone, without connection, without a reason to ‘be’.

When we set off on a journey, we like to know where we are going. We arm ourselves with a map and a compass. There is a start point and an end point. We step out into the world and off we go. But sometimes the route is not always clear, and we get diverted. Perhaps we find somewhere we like and we decide to stop and enjoy this place. Or we meet someone and go off with them on another route all together—as a shared experience. Maybe there is something in our way and we have to go around it. Sometimes that obstacle feels insurmountable and we want to give up, and we feel we have reached as far as we can go—but, on most occasions, it never is. 

In reality, there is only one journey we are on. It is one that consists of lots of brief journeys—from your repetitive daily commute, to your once in a lifetime ‘around the world’ trip. But they are incidental to the big one.

What is this journey? All matter of the universe shares it. That journey is life itself. The start point is our birth. The end point, for our conscious self, is our death. As humans, we live and die—just as planets do. What is beyond that is beyond our understanding of the known universe. All we know for certain is that the atoms of our physicality are repurposed for another use. But they continue to go forward, away and outward from the centre into infinity—just in another form. Our spirit and our soul dissipate into the life force that surrounds us. Perhaps that journey also continues, perhaps in another direction altogether.

As a child, on a warm summer’s day, I used to lie down on my back upon the freshly mown lawn, arms outstretched, palms and eyes to the sky. 

Each individual stem of grass felt soft on the back of my hands. The soil below, baked hard from the sun, was my bedrock, my foundation. If I turned my face either left or right, I might notice a tiny insect making its way up or down that stem, minding its own business, doing whatever it felt it needed to do. He or she appeared purposeful, sometimes nonchalant, sometimes hurried and determined. I would then turn my head skywards. Wispy clouds would float across from one horizon to the other, and I imagined I could see through the fine azure to the deeper blue and darkness of the galaxy itself.

I swear I could feel the gentle rotation of the earth. I was as at one with the ground deep beneath my body and on a voyage through time and space. This enormous piece of rock and water, this beautiful blue and green sphere with its protective ring of atmosphere, is a cosy and comfortable mobile home to myself and my fellow passengers, those busy insects.  It is our giant, life-sustaining spaceship. Even back then, I felt I belonged, and I could sense that shared experience.

I now know I am a constituent part of something much bigger - a small cog in a very large wheel. I may not be sure of what that cog is supposed to do, by definition. However, I know that life is a journey, and it is one of discovery. Most importantly, I know I am built of the same stuff as every other small thing in this universe, and I am just as insignificant, but as important, as every other—why else would I exist?

To conclude, as much as I probably will never find a complete answer to ‘why am I here?’, I know who and what I am. I may not yet fully understand what my reason to ‘be’ is, but I know the journey I am on is a long one.

So, I shall continue to endeavour to ‘be’, to discover, and continuing on my long journey, I shall endeavour to ‘be’ long.

Watery Memories by Jennie Hart

 

In nineteen seventy nine, Penelope Fitzgerald won the Booker prize with her novel ‘Offshore’. It portrays a cameo of barge life on the Thames at Battersea Reach. The barge dwellers live at their moorings in a close community choosing an unconventional alternative lifestyle. There are colourful characters and even the cat is neurotic and mentally unstable. Sometimes, if rats on the wharf are a certain manageable size, she chases them, but often, if they are of the larger variety, they chase her. She never quite knows whether she is coming or going. Her stalking ground is grubby and she has spent years trying to lick herself clean and is as thickly coated with mud inside as out!

Inspired by this story I visited Battersea Reach having read there were barges still there. They were lined up in their moorings, mostly shiny with fresh paint, in red and cream and shades of blue. None looked neglected or make-do and some had an air of affluence with decking and planters and fancy doors.

In the novel set in the sixties, they were quirky and characterful and often struggled to be watertight. They were moored randomly and some owners had to cross their neighbour’s barge to reach a gang plank to board their own. This arrangement was precarious and a priest stops visiting, unsurprisingly, because twice he falls in. When one of the barges develops a hole and is sinking, the dweller is less concerned about saving himself than rescuing his pan of mussels stewing in the galley.

I was especially attracted to this book because my paternal great grandfather was a bargee or lighter man. I didn’t know him but have a sepia photo where he stands in fisherman’s Guernsey and flat cap staring grimly at the camera. He was very small but broad chested and looks strong and weary as if adapted to a strenuous life.

Belonging - Back to the Netherlands by Kay Yendole

"Quite Emotional" 

Visiting the Canadian War Cemetery Holten., the Netherlands:

one of the most impressive reminders of the Second World War.  

It's 1983 and my father and my brother and his girlfriend Margaret are with me on a nostalgia trip visiting the place where John and I were born.

De Crito a thatched cottage in the middle of a pine forest in Holten Overijssel on the Dutch border with Germany.

The house surprisingly after all this time looks much the same and extremely well kept with more modern double glazing but still the thatched roof. Obviously lived in, the well tended garden is full of tidily clipped bushes framing the perimeter and wicker garden chairs look comfortably inviting.