Woolworths and I

In those days there was snow
when the postman trudged up the path
on Christmas Day in Liverpool
with parcels in brown paper
from aunts I didn't know
in Gloucester
and I was a Master Somebody
they didn't know.
 
The stamp album I dated 1954
soon bulged with stamps
on stamp-hinges tastily licked
and open-mouth tweezered
into the squares,
their perforated edges
frontiers no stamp must cross,
no territory invade.
 
In those days I had to write
thank you letters
to the aunts I didn't know.
Thank you for the stamp album.
It is very nice.
I am a regular customer in Woolworths.
And I now know the capital
of every country in the world,
and countries that no longer exist,
countries that have torn themselves apart
or been torn apart.
I could have added that.
 
Was the album from you,
the smiley Auntie Dorothy
I stayed with for a day
with the plums and no kids
and the Uncle Win who had a squeezy pump
for his asthma,
who said take a deep breath,
that's a healthy country smell?
Was it his asthma that made you end it all?
 
Or perhaps you sent it,
the maiden Auntie Kathleen,
the youngest who kept the house
and who had to do the caring
for the drinker I didn't know and won't forget
I met him for seconds in a Gloucester street.
This is your grandfather, said my dad.
The maiden aunt who might have had photos
by your bedside of your nieces and nephews
you would one day leave a thousand pounds to.
Or a photo of an airman, a sailor, a soldier,
who'd left you longing,
who'd not returned, no-one ever said.
 
Postage stamps with bloody histories,
from Germany, Poland, Austria, Russia,
Belgium, Italy, Spain, Japan.
Heads of dictators, kings and queens,
emperors, their backsides licked
and posted on letters from the dead
to the dead, the bombed, the gassed,
the tortured, the slave-laboured,
the uprooted, the blown to pieces.
 
It's gone, of course,
the thousand pounds,
but not you, not you,
whichever aunt you were,
wrapped with love and posted

with the album,

my DNA bank of millions.

.

.

Reviews

[Chris Shaw]

I too was a big fan of Woolworths Gerald and shopped there as a youngster right through to that final closure day. So sad to see it go. I have my stamp album as well. Kept from the 1950's which every now and again, I'll get out and examine all those old stamps from places that have now been renamed. Each week my pocket money wouk buy new stamps from an old antique shop close to where I lived. The description of your relatives, made me think of mine too and their generosity at Christmas and for birthdays. They hold a special place in my memory bank. These lines of yours are a real trip down nostalgia lane. You took me back to my childhood with your wonderful writing and I enjoyed it immensely. Thank you for that.

Chris

[Gerald Parker]

That's really heart-warming to read about you enjoying my poem. Thanks, Chris.
Gerald

[Kelly Scheppers]

Your memories are strung together in a most profound way. I love how you personified Aunt Dorothy, "with the plums and no kids". It's funny how kids remember adults not having kids of their own, like they're supposed to, aren't they? Isn't that what happens when you grow up? But it was your closing that captured my heart...thank you!

[Gerald Parker]

Thanks for commenting, Kelly. Pleased you liked it.

[Stella Armour]

Oh dear, i soon as i saw "Woolworths" i was hooked on this read, and oh yes, the brown paper parcels from aunts we only heard from at Christmas.
i had a stamp album with those double sided sticky things for the stamps which taught me all about which country they were from... and the doubles and trebles you could never swap lol.
Memories... don't think there are any stamps for kids to collect now lol

[Gerald Parker]

Thanks, Stella. Just thinking of Woolworths, I can remember the smell as I went in. The sweet displays were right in front of me, the stamps just a little further in, on the right hand side of the central counter.

[Stella Armour]

It was a national treasure that shop lol ...