Edexcel GCSE Poetry Anthology

Relationships
16
Lines to my Grandfathers
I
Ploughed parallel as print the stony earth.
The straight stone walls defy the steep grey slopes.
The place’s rightness for my mother’s birth
exceeds the pilgrim grandson’s wildest hopes –
5 Wilkinson farmed Thrang Crag, Martindale.
Horner was the Haworth signalman.
Harrison kept a pub with home-brewed ale:
fell farmer, railwayman, and publican,
and he, while granma slaved to tend the vat
10 graced the rival bars ‘to make comparisons’,
Queen’s Arms, the Duke of this, the Duke of that,
while his was known as just ‘ The Harrisons’ ’.
He carried cane and guineas, no coin baser!
He dressed the gentleman beyond his place
15 and paid in gold for beer and whisky chaser
but took his knuckleduster, ‘just in case’.