'Some Things a Townie Learnt on a Trip to a South Shropshire Dairy Farm' by David Bingham

It’s a myth that cows lie down when it’s going to rain.

Sitting on a bale of straw is very comfortable.

The ideal shorthorn dairy cow is wedge-shaped from back to front and from top to bottom.

Farm cats are nosey and follow strangers around.

A dairy farmer knows each cow in his herd by name and will have his favourites.

A farmer’s son can ride his bike up a steeply-sloping, rutted field

A cow which is too intelligent can be as much a liability as one which is not too bright.

Dairy farmers like to have an afternoon nap between milking times as they get up early in the morning.

A farmer is usually quietly spoken; but if he tells his son to collect a calf from the high field, then his son goes and collects a calf from the high field.

The best way for a townie to cross a field with a herd of cows is to walk through calmly and ignore them.

Hens lay eggs in the strangest of places.

'Coalport Morning' by Marilyn Gunn

Dawn trees
with their long low companionable shadows
they would not be parted from;

it is as if they carry on the breath:
those new earth mornings of candescent light,
spreading their beams across millennia
to reach this place.

Nothing has changed,
nothing escapes the soft flood,
the bright benediction of slant rays
firing up dew, kindling grass
on this next in the chain of first days:

light the frail touch paper
every leaf burns.

Remember that morning
when bird-song dazzled us awake?
And how we lay there then listening
in the hush of the great afterwards silence
that expanded around us;

And then the green, whispering,
calling us,
drawing us out.

'Amongst the Horses' by Tom Wentworth

Do you see that speck upon the hill so high?
I see everything from my position down below;
they do not stir,
they do not shake their tails
in the silky, cinematic landscape
and as the breeze rushes past,
they do not stir again:
the paths of one thousand giants
crunch and crackle like the mints
that the horses love so much.
I would not touch them,
would not dare;
a shaggy set they are
but content like teddy bears of suede.
The thickness of the tufts of grass decrease,
as I am swallowed,
but an earthy smell rises,
silvery statues, left to days of sun.
The sun has retired
and so must I
I am the horse whisperer.

'Progress' by Paul Francis

From a display at Acton Scott, 20.6.09


Good housewives, mother taught me
As I swept the kitchen floor
Spin thread at home on wheels
Made by Edward Bore.

As parish clerk he’d gathered
A little local fame
But it was the beauty of his wheels
That truly made his name.

When new machines made cheaper thread
No knocking at his door.
His humming lathe was still; he died
Unrecognised and poor.


Paul Francis