Bird Childs and Goldsmith Poetry & Quotes Page two


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There’s a special kind of closeness
that only families know
That begins with childhood trust
and deepens as you grow
There’s a special kind of happiness
in sharing little things
The laughter, smiles and quiet talks
that daily living brings
There’s a special kind of comfort
in knowing your family’s there
To back you up, to cheer you up
to understand and care
Of all the treasurers life may bring
your family means the most
And whether near or far apart
that love will hold you close.
Author unknown

Give Bees a Chance

Give bees a chance to collect their food,
to do their bee dance and raise their brood
For bees waking from their winter gloom,
let golden celandines and dandelions bloom.
A feast for our eyes, cut grass later and less,
Only the edges of paths and enjoy widerness

I love mown grass, a green sward,
but the needs of bees must not be ignored.
The cut green lawn is so neat,
but for bees it's like green concrete
Bees need a bit of sweet disorder,
more use than many a garden border.
A place to hide, a place to feed and a place to breed.
Wildflowers, weeds, and seeds fulfill wildlife needs

A world without bees, misery starvation & disease
With other insects, our food plants they fertilise,
we offer them non native species GM and pesticides.
We take their honey to eat and make money
we sit in the sun with our bread and honey
Scientists have said four years of no bees
and we will all be dead

As a child in the garden in the 1940's
I would hear the hum & buzz of bees
The buzz of bees on a blue summer day
Is not our choice to throw away

Thalia Campbell © 2010

Poem inspired by our war of attrition with the council workers to let
the dandelions and celandines bloom on public land.

Grandmother's Sweet Peas

Early in the morning, hand in hand ,
we went naked to the orchard land.
With chamber pot, along the cinder path, her and me,
warm sun on our bodies as brown as can be.
Behind high stone walls, nobody could see.

In 1943 my grandmother said to me
"Not a good idea to put your pee in the sea.
It makes flowers grow and its free,
But it pollutes the sea.
Go to Hopes Nose, in Torquay."
We went in the car, its not very far
We slid down the grass under the pine trees
My father took me to see,
the brown stain curling out to sea.

In the 1950s as young teachers in Nottingham we saw the city so proud,
of treating its waste, selling it and spreading it on the land around.

In Southampton on hot sunny days in 1963
our children could not play on the golden pebbles by the sea.
The gulls had a feast, a tomato plant forest grew for all to see
as The Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary and other ships
discharged their waste into the sea,
The children had to play on the bomb sites with me,
Broken houses open to the sky, garden and wild flowers gone awry
where to mice cowered, between the showers ,
we found treasures from lost lives. (not so long since1945.)
At the end of the road we were tempted to look at the shore ,
They could not keep their hands off the shells and the stones
My children were so sick and I said to the shore no more.

In 1968 we painted the Sewer in Scarborough which got rid of Sewage cheaply.
Out of its threepenny bit concrete mouth it spat the sewage onto the beach,
with pink and green toilet paper it trickled through the rock pools to the sea.
Our painting was exhibited in the local art Gallery and at Surrey University.

With my children in Wales in 1973
We used the compost toilets at the National Centre for Alternative Technology

We lived in Borth in a concrete box by the sea
It was built by an avantgard architect in 187O's
It was swept by the wind and bleached by the sun
It was at least three miles to the nearest tree.
We had our sewage disposed of free.
A well built system with two septic tanks.
Gently sloping salt glazed pipes, set in the pebble bank
In bikinis and wellies we could rod them ourselves.
And jump in the sea afterwards to get rid of the smells
We kept our old drains, didn't go on the mains.
Our small effort to cherish the sea.

In 1989 we drove the backroads from Aberystwyth to Brighton by the sea
to attend the bitter revisionism of the Conference of the Labour Party.
We stopped at all the watercourses big and small
We could smell and see pollution in one and all.

In 1995 our WILPF train crossed the border to China,
going to the UN Womens Conference in Beijing,
out of 240 women the Americans were king
They knew the Chinese used night soil to grow crops,
American hands and voices were raised in horrors and shocks ,
and they said we are not, we are not, eating a thing!
The length of the train what a fuss and a din
I said where is the sea to put the pee in?
The sea is not a dustbin!

An oldie at Pembroke Market in 2003
shared her memories with me.
With the earth closet she used as a child
Their Potatoes and tomatoes grew prolifically
Sustainable as we used to be.

Today on my daily walk round Castle pond,
I still smell sewage on it's way to the sea.
On hot days children jump in and swim .

In 2009 with world oil running out
oil fertilisers in doubt, no longer about,
Bob Flowerdew would agree
Now we all need to live sustainably.

Thalia Campbell October 2009 ©

My grandmother and parents sparked an early, life long interest in waste disposal.

Painting Ian Campbell © In Scarborough Art Gallery

I remember mother saying that land was privately owned and was given to
the town in a Will. The sight and smell of the sewage there was awful.
heaven knows what it must be like now!. It is the most expensive area in Torquay. Thalia

Thatcher Rock Torquay

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL MY FRIENDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE

1930's 1940's, 50's, 60's and early 70's !

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, raw egg products, loads of bacon and processed meat, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets or shoes, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

Take away food was limited to fish and chips, no pizza shops, McDonalds , KFC, Subway or Nandos.

Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm and didn't open at the weekends, somehow we didn't starve to death!

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store and buy Toffees, Gobstoppers, Bubble Gum and some bangers to blow up frogs with.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks with sugar in them, but we weren't overweight because......

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of old prams and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. We built tree houses and dens and played in river beds with matchbox cars.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo Wii , X-boxes, no video games at all, no 999 channels on SKY , no video/dvd films, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no
lawsuits from these accidents.

Only girls had pierced ears!

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross Buns at Easter time...

We were given air guns and catapults for our 10th birthdays,

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!

RUGBY and CRICKET had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! Getting into the team was based on
MERIT

Our teachers used to hit us with belts or canes and gym shoes and bullies always ruled the playground at school.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of.
They actually sided with the law!

Our parents didn't invent stupid names for their kids like 'Kiora' and 'Blade' and 'Ridge' and 'Vanilla'

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO
DEAL WITH IT ALL !

And YOU are one of them!
CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.

And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were

A quote from How Mumbo Jumbo conquered the world by Francis Wheen

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity.
Immaturity is the inability to use ones own understanding without
direction from another.This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is
not lack of understanding but lack of resolve and courage to use it
without another's guidance . Immanuel Kant

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Sapere Aude - Dare to Know - That is the motto of the Enlightment.

Love at Prospect Cottage

Blue Bottle buzzing
Lazy days
The sky blue butterfly
Sways on the cornflower
Lost in the warmth
Of the blue heat haze
Singing the blues
Quiet and slowly

Blue of my heart
Blue of my dreams
Slow blue love
Of delphinium days

Blue is the universal love in which man bathes - it is the terrestrial paradise.
Derek Jarman 'Blue' 1942 - 1994

From Linda and Ron to Janice and Mimmo 1998

An old Italian start to the day

Translation from Italian - a thought for us all .............

Menu to prepare each morning

Take 200 grams of Patience
A cup of Kindness
4 spoons of Goodwill
A pinch of Hope and
A measure of Good Faith
Add 2 handfulls of Tolerance
And a little Prudence
A little thread of Sympathy
A little handful of that rare plant that's called Humbleness
A great quantity of Good Humour
Mix together with a great deal of Good Sense
Leave to simmer on a low flame
And have a Good Day!

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind
The answer is blowing in the wind......
Bob Dylan

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There's nothing more cruel than silence...