About Our Words: An Old Poker
An article by Ronnie Bray jogged John Brian Leaver's memories into new life.
Thank you, Ronnie, for throwing a shaft of light into the dormant recesses of my past. Your entertaining piece on the easing of shoes brought to mind, among other things, our family fire poker which first entered my consciousness about 1936.
I would be going on for five when, one evening, Dad, on returning home from the mill, produced from within his mac a steel spindle, perhaps nearly two foot long, threaded at one end to hold a fair sized nut.
After tea, around the fire with a new poker to break in, conversation between mother, (a Lancashire loom weaver, and dad, invariably told of the latest mill closures, talk of jacquards, dobbies, and a dearth of orders. All of which meant nothing to me other than life did not augur well.
Through the war years and the peace the poker slowly wittled down to a stub, finally becoming redundant when our neighbourhood was declared a smokeless zone, replaced by the new kid on the block, a gasfire.
On breaking up mother's home, on her death, in 1996 I was sweeping out the old coalhouse when, from out of a mound of coal slack, rolled the poker. I had totally forgotten its existence.
I held it for some time. Jacquards, dobbies, mill closures and the shortage of work came flooding back. I could not bring myself to abandon this lifeless stump.
It now lives in my dark gloryhole, until that is my son comes across it on sweeping out my accumulated detritus on my passing. As he discards it he will wonder no doubt what came over me to hoard such a useless stub of metal with a seized nut on the end.
Web Page: http://www.openwriting.com/archives/2010/08/talking_toes_1.php
