Travelers Welcome

Travelers Welcome

Thursday, March 19, 2015

The Day Her Majesty’s Prison Officers Birched My Father
…They Lost And We All Became Stronger!

by Paul Tristram

It was up at the Notorious house on Penlan Road,
at the bottom of the mountain in Skewen.
We were all still children not yet teenagers,
when he stood up by the stone fireplace
and pulled down his black corduroy Levi 501’s
to show us the stripy scars all down his right thigh.
“Bastards!” I hissed and spat in an astray
as he scanned our faces closely and slowly,
nodding at me-the oldest-just like he always did.
Then he picked up that bottle of ‘Old England’
Medium Sherry and put it to his lips
for the first time in days and started in on thinking
serious about things, the past and life, once again.
We all left him to it, went down to 1 of the 3 cellars,
armed ourselves with empty beer bottles, bricks
and stolen bits of firewood and crawling through
the bolthole in the bottom of the wire fence.
Attacked the back section of Mettoy’s Toy Factory
situated in the middle of the private property
factory complex which lay just across the road.

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