


Down Smallthorne – Poem by Ann Graal
Aunt Maud, who’d never slept a night away from 4 Wharf Street, two up two down, rented, close to where they piled the coal from Bellerton and Sneyd – reads only columns of the Evening Sentinel’s Births, Marriages and Deaths, her lips laboriously shaping names she’d...Smallthorne – A poem by Barry Ashley
Smallthorne bred and Smallthorne born
We move away but homeward drawn
Each photo paints not just words
But feelings felt, sights seen, sounds heard
Places and people gone and those still around
Each building, alleyway a new playground
From a childhood not rich nor poor
Lived fully and experienced more
Memories of Old Bradeley by John Bourne.
The contractors came to wreck
And to pillage,
Men with hard hats have demolished
My village.
Men who were swinging great big sledge hammers,
Big yellow’ dozers with hydraulic rammers.
Pushing and pulling and groaning
With strain,
Why do they cause so many
This pain.