Farewell To My Mother
This free verse poem remembers the occasion when, as an eighteen year old apprentice, my mother drove me to join 'Strathnairn', my fourth ship, in London's Royal Albert dock. Listen to: Farewell To My Mother I sat nervous and wary of the unknown as she drove me to London and the docks. I was still young, a youth, and immature enough to suffer a boy’s irrational dread of being seen in public with his mother. And I was ashamed of her ancient car, and felt that we trespassed as we clattered through the City, along those famous streets, past grand weathered buildings, still soot-blackened by years of coal fires, industry—and war. At the dock gates the IRA's bombs had failed to stir the police into vigilance. They stayed dry out of the summer drizzle, waving us through with barely a glance to where, like her car, everything was worn-out. The once-thriving dock seemed abandoned then, but for two or three ships idle alongside. The warehouses were silent and empty, or ruined,