Poems & Prose

Please enjoy reading the variety of poetry and prose produced by the creative contributors who attended out Voicing the Hidden creative walks in September 2021. The writing is inspired by the hidden heritage around Walmgate and Fossgate, two historically rich York streets with strong working-class roots.

   

Simon Mattam – ‘Hidstory’ at Fishergate Bar 

Where is the hidstory in this still place? 
Though nothing's moving now, there are some signs: 
broad grooves beside the arch and red-stained stone 
could tell us that a slide-down gate was burned 
by countrymen five hundred years ago. 
The commons took the city, burned two bars  
-but then, perhaps, the rest is hidstory. 
    

Peter Pexton – River

Now the silent River Foss 
Flows with its verdant summer gloss 
 
The forge and hammer are silent now 
That rang beneath the sweating brow 
 
The B.T. mast erected for generations new 
From Walmgate Walls obscures the 
Minster view 
 

Lyn Cowles – A Walk-Through Time

From the sulking lion of Merchant Gate, through workshop yards 
and then, St Margret’s Parish the now gentrified George Street
curves away to where passion fruit grows on railings 
and then, to Ebenezer Place along the walls the smell of cattle,
beer & urine to the pigsties atop Walmgate Bar 
and then, back in the 21st century you notice the hustle & bustle
of tourists, students & shoppers crowded pavements, cafes & bars,
where only hens cluck in IL Paradiso 
and all the while the gentle Foss  winds its way beneath us,
as quiet as the Mute Swans of Wormald’s Cut. 
       

John Gilham – Walmgate/Fossgate 

Famine drove them from Eire, 
that, and the English – to crowd here 
in dank rookeries, still hungry. 

Now the street holds many peoples, 
a hundred kitchens, a hundred stories, 
of hope, of speculation. 

Some flee war or poverty, drought, 
for a dream of being someone new, 
of maybe, sending money home. 

Along the walls the Council houses 
bound this bright kaleidoscope 
of industrious servants 

whose trades define our times – 
electronic bleeps, the waft of spices, 
scents and sounds unimagined 

when the shit-brown river was an open privy, 
the air smelt of hammered iron and dung, 
the cobbles rang to horseshoes, blakeys, segs. 
    

Walmgate – Lyn Langford

A street of merchants, haberdashers, the rich, 
but there’s the other side, 
--the class divide- refugees from famine, 
the stench of rags and bone, 
the thump of hammer on stone. 

From Hope to Speculation street, 
from Speculation to Hope. 
Foundries lost, factories found and lost, 
competition, demolition. 
A hard life, still lived. 

Workers went for solace and ale 
to the Bluebell, the ‘Spread’, the Red Lion 
-a red line drawn by mothers and wives 
against drunkenness, disease, 
debauchery, sedition. 

The Georgian Dorothy Wilson hospital, 
the Bowes Morrell House, 
the spicy yellow Almaz eaterie 
alongside faceless flats, 
shops with no name 

Further up: the Chopping block 
once a saddlers, a hangman’s noose makers. 
down Strakers Passage, Black Horse Passage 
running in blood 
to brothels, slaughterhouses, 
past the no-time clock. 

The Foss, covered with algae and litter 
on boxing day 2015 flushed through the cellar- 
-once a renowned brothel - 
of the fine-dining Blue Bicycle. 
Opposite: Loch Fyne, the former home of Stubbs 
where nails, hammers, drills and screws 
shone like crown jewels. 
 
We are museums as time goes by; 
memories furled, shelved, fading,
Waiting…... 

But here at the top of Fossgate there’s a display 
of food and drink from around the world.
    

Catherine Pemberton

Buildings
The old and new buildings stand side by side 
Some old buildings try to hide 
A few have ghost signs on them to show what they 
were in a former life 
Many have gone 
No more to be seen.
    

Cattle Market
Come on 
Let’s go 
It’s time to get the cattle on the road 
It will soon be daylight don’t you know 
Four people in front 
To warn the traffic of what’s ahead 
Four behind 
Driving the cattle through the centre of York 
Would defiantly make the people talk 
With the smell and sound 
Left on the ground 
It would defiantly make the motorists shout 
Get them b--------- animals out 

The cattle market is no more 
This is a poem of now and before.

City Walls
In and out of the city walls 
People come and go 
Wonder how much history 
They really know.
    

Echoes – Brian Coleman

There is a magic here 
Not just the Harry Potter kind 
It is in the fabric of the place 
Deep cut, etched eternal, in its stones 
It speaks to me in quiet bricked corners 
Just beyond the daily clamour 
It is history you see 
It hangs as cobwebs hang 
Pure and elegant 
Sometimes glimpsed in early dew 
More often swept away 
I feel it now 
As if turning a corner turns a key 
And I unlock the past 
These cobbles ring cacophonous  
With steel rim or hob nail 
With cries and laughter pain and pleasure 
A glorious hubbub  
Can you hear it 
Or taste it 
Or smell it 
But you can 
Of course you can 
Touch it 
And feel it 
I feel it 
Can you?
     

Walmgate – Evelyn Watson

I wander down the street admiring the rich variety of buildings 
whose facades reflect the changing fashions in building design
over time.  As the style of buildings changed, so too did the
goods in the shops to meet the demands of the people of their
time. 

Stubbs ironmongers replaced by a fish restaurant.
The fish shops that could have supplied the restaurant
have been replaced by the type of shops that are prevalent
today: such as charity shops and book shops. Above all,
eating places now dominate the street largely run by
people who have come to this country looking for a better life. 

That is not a new development. Previously people came to the
street from Ireland driven out by starvation following the
potato famine.  The slums they inhabited are long gone but 
the memory of that time lives on.  The unsung heroes of the
wealth they created. The buildings they worked in, tucked away
behind the street, are still in use, albeit the nature of
their businesses is very different today.  Thankfully the
lives of those who work there now are very different too. 
    

Thoughts – Johnny Hayes

I found the walk really got me thinking about what is 
precious and what needs to be resisted and objected to.
It is really good to open your eyes and see the familiar
afresh. To smell and sense the atmosphere. 

I loved that superb view down the Foss with views of 
Rowntree Wharfe and the Foss Bridge. I had never been
there before and it was a revelation and a lovely view
on a lovely day in York. 

But unfortunately it was a negative image that has stuck
with me most. It was the horror of seeing the immensely
ugly BT building at the end of Strakers Passage again my
 
first visit down that passageway. The BT building is hard
to look at as it is so ugly, uncared for and mutilated.
It had all the atmosphere of a vandalised public convenience
on a huge scale. It reminded me of how important it is to do
our utmost to protect York from ugly soulless developments.
I had never seen this up close before and it was truly a shock.

We need to remind ourselves of the worst of York as well as the
best. I did not take any photos of it at the time but I intend
to go back and take some now. I will include it in anything I
finally write as a warning. We all need to do what we can to
stop bad buildings being built.  
 

Megan McKenna

Views on Time and History While Walking York Walls 
Walking the walls - or time-walking - 
Time as collage mashed together by history. 
Culture hungry, we hunt avidly for picture perfect perspectives, 
But imperfect histories of hardship and necessity interfere. 
Modernity mars the tourist-craved ‘Yorkness’  
The ineffable quality, the quintessential quirk - 
Who is it for? 

Walmgate 
Gateways galore. 
Mysterious nooks entice 
The imagination at every turn. 
Callings from courtyards - a parallel universe, perhaps? 
More likely full of washing lines, playgrounds for cats. 

Fossgate 
Purpose no more, but pursuits of pleasure and perusal,  
Idle conversations during idle afternoons  
Transient pleasures replace practical possessions. 
Working-class worries become after-work cocktails.