大象传媒

This is a poem written by my late Auntie Eileen Gilmartin Hair. The clock is attached to Liverpool University and still stands today facing Christ the King Cathedral. My family lived in the City and my grandparents would not allow my mother and her sisters to evacuate. Years later my aunt wrote this poem about her experiences.This is dedicated to her.
Eileen Gilmartin Hair 1932 - 2002

The Clock On Brownlow Hill
As I looked at the clock on Brownlow Hill,
Just for a moment time stood still
I looked from the window of the Infirmary,
And it took me back on a long journey.

The things you had seen are the things I'd forgot,
Oh how I hate that ticking clock.You saw the pawnshops he queue's of the poor.The poverty knocking on so many doors.

You saw the planes and incendiary flares,
We heard the sirens, the alert, the all clears.
You saw the searchlights in the sky,You saw us all as we ran by.

Adults and children running fast,To find a shelter before the blast.You saw the sky a bloody red,The blood of the city, The last breath of the dead.

In Oxford Street, all of us running,Planes flying low with machine guns gunning. Women giving birth, but outside the door,A child was trembling, with her face to the floor.

With kit bags and gas masks for evacuation,
Children are waiting at the railway station.
Vera Lynn songs are playing for them,We'll Meet Again, Dont Know Where, Don't Know When.

The Holy family behind the wall,Where I heard mass when I was small.Was a poor makeshift church with a leaking roof. And now in it's place standing aloof,Is a beautiful building, a magnificent thing.
With a Crown on it's head, stands Christ the King.

Just think when you look at that piece of land.
On Great Orford and Duckinfield Street it stands.But where have the houses and people gone?The houses brought down by Hitlers Bomb.People died, but others lived on.

The Embassy Rooms now the Irish Centre,was next to this carnage, I'll be your mentor.In the Cathedrals Shadows,walked the women in shawls.To the Everyman Theatre that was then the Hope Hall.Watching the old films in nine penny seats,and just further on was Maryland Street.

And that was off the street called Hope,Where we went to school and sang God save the Pope.
And tested our gas masks in hands dipped in aloes,watched the dunce in the corner with his eyes full of sorrows.

Please see Part 2 of the poem.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.