Wilson Jefferson

Lancashire, UK

I was born 20 March 1923 in Carlisle. I am retired and living with my wife Gladys in Heysham. We have two sons, Alan and Brian, and three grandchildren, Alescunder Mark, Sarah Elizabeth, and Rosalyn Emma. We have been married for 53 years. My hobby is steam railways. I have pencil drawings as well as poetry. I was a railway fireman for a few years, during the late forties and fifties. I run a W.R.V.S over sixties club in Heysham. My poetry comes from my love and knowledge of the railway. I also have my own small working model of the steam age.

The Diesel

They dash along, the people stare,
Their acrid fumes, doth fill the air,
They may be fast, but beauty's sad.
Compared to what the railway had.

Their build is nothing but a tram,
Both ends we see, are but the same,
They come and go relentlessly,
But ne're a welcome flame to see.

No friendly puffs of snow white steam,
Which used to be the railmans dream,
No safety valves to rend the air,
And make the cows and horses stare.

The diesel seems inanimate,
No moving parts in syncopate,
No matter how we think of them,
They'll never be a railway gem.

The Settle Line

'Twas in the year of 'Sixty-nine,
The railway said they'd build a line,
This mountain struggle mile by mile
Would stretch from Settle to Carlisle.

The "Midland" said, "A route we lack
To get the Scottish traffic back,"
The job will be of no mean feat,
Through granite rock, and moss of peat.

So from the south they forged the bed,
Up mountain side to ribblehead,
The valley reached, "And", said the boss,
"We'll have to bridge old batty moss."

For whernside fell they had a cure,
A tunnel long, they called "Blea Moor",
They onward toiled without a pause,
To Station Dent, and Junction Hawse.

And slowly onward with a will,
They reached the summit of Ais-gill,
Past Kirkby, Crosby and Ormside,
The Eden valley opened wide.

Past Appleby and Armathwaite,
Still tunneling through rock and slate,
They laboured on, and in a while,
They reached their target at Carlisle.

The line was laid and it looked well,
The gangs had worked in living hell,
The men went home, but what they'd learned,
Had not helped those, who'd not returned.

Today it stand "A sentinel",
To those who worked so very well,
To all the men, who's lives were laid,
It's memory must never fade.