When this delightful dawning ends: John Reginald Holmes

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NEW PICTURES

Here are two new pictures, which I believe are of Reg, aged? about 12(?) in? Wales(?)

Perhaps someone can confirm?

And is that his Mother in the background of both?

If so, then it is likely that his father took the photographs?

They were found in a booklet about Norley.

The Reprobate

I might be dead to all I knew

I might be spread in Wales – my due

But I’ve not gone away from here

I wander round the atmosphere

Remembering this – reminding there

Your memory finds me anywhere

It’s time to settle up my house

Go down – take stock – and use your nous

That coal I kept wrapped up and neat

To bolster winters needing heat

A treat to think on from my seat

Upon the stove - I sat replete

And spend some time on tattered books

My songs and dances – laughs and looks

Give them to friends who think of me

Set them adrift and make them free

There are not any needs – for see

I’m yet a simple synchrony*

In watched amusement I gyrate

Behind the door – before the gate

Inside you – where all courage lies

I watch you turn and realise

That there’s no better life surprise

Than death – but still before your eyes

I reappear – take hold – remain

Your thoughts still find me in the lane

A motley man of grand estate

Of dust and mould – please don’t berate

My habits – lax – nor remonstrate

A kind man – I – The Reprobate

* synchrony = coincidence in time

Young Reg

19Sept2010 - The following four poems and one song were all written - at the time when their content happened or just after - on Sunday 19 September 2010. That was the day when friends - some of whom had known Reg for all of their lives, the rest being members of Northwich Folk Club - all went to Wales, to Llangwm, to scatter Reg on Foel Goch. They are presented here as a tribute to a friend, whose life was good.

1. On the road to scatter Reg

The Corwen Candle factory

can boast a Sunday-open shop

A café – serving tea and toast

And friendly chat and smiles

“A toasted tea cake? Well of course”

And round the walls the twelve inch tiles

Each one is different to the rest

With scenes of pleasant streets and bobbing boats

Two white haired odd-dressed cycling ‘lads’

Whose water bottles-for-the-road

Are filled with far-too-hot – not cold

But smiles and laughter send them on their way

They say goodbye – and as they leave

The gentle lady serving food

Says “Don’t forget your bottles on the table”

And back they come and say goodbye again

by Steve

2. Breezes take me home

The finest rain that Wales can give

With harebells blue along the lane

And yarrow – rose heps – sheep

and green green green

A chapel sitting up the hill

Victorian built and warmed today

By fires high along the wall

And congregations come to sing

“What a friend we have in Jesus..”

Ringing Welsh and English round

A sermon and a run of songs

Pick up old Reg - to send him on his way

Three months before – he’d died

And we had sung his willow coffin out

To claim his ashes and fulfil his will

A rather special man to lose

Was Reg – the peaceful sober man

Who wouldn’t go to war - yet stood his ground

He’d danced – and played so others could

He’d fought for common rights of man

And learned the languages he spoke

But most of all he gathered moss

If all his friends could count as such

And took delight in all their company

He picked up songs to make his own

And wrote his songs to spread around

At eighty-nine still rode his motorbike

He wouldn’t take their noxious drugs

Not even when he broke his hip

And when leukaemia set in – he died

This doesn’t sound too much of life

But sparks of his still lie in wait

To take the lives he touched upon

And move them into spheres they can’t explain

Just one man floated on the air

Through breezes where he loved to roam

Along momentous avenues with friends

by Steve

3. The wish – the breeze – the rowan trees

A row of cars parked on the country hill

The chapel perched a little way above

And in the rain – off-come – the people walked

A group well dressed for walking on the hill

Caught in the glare – a hundred miles from home

Their friend tucked safely in the carrier bag

In red – his carrier – and his urn the same

And that was reason to be here from home

The Chapel rang with Welsh and English song

A welcome from its regulars the same

As when this friend – for many years – had come

To tell his tales and join them in their song

The service done – they trooped into the Hall

Where tea was laid and served to all who came

In chat and banter they joined in - the same

As he had done when last he trod the hall

And then the convoy drove – in long cortege

As cars wound down along the road and up

To find the rowans high on Foel Goch

A final place to rest for this cortege

In sheeting sweeping rain they spread his dust

In song and good clean whisky toasted him

Whilst in the field above – the suckler herd

Stood watching strangeness – In the rain – the dust

Now some of Reg lies at the rowan trees

And more was scattered on the grass beside

I’ll toast the man who swept off with the breeze

To join in freedom’s last request

The mountain air beside the rowan trees

Reg's 94th Birthday in 2007

4. The Man – The Gift

The man who danced for joy

Is flying in the valley

The man who sang his song

Is whistling with the birds

The man who joked and laughed

Is chuckling through the water

The man who played and ran

Is rolling in the green

The man who knew his friends

Has gifted them forever

by Steve

And on my roundabout way home - before crossing Denbeigh Moor - I saw on a concrete aproned farmyard:

5. Rain? – Lovely stuff (The little black and white sheepdogs)

All the puppies were out in the rain
All the puppies were out in the rain
All the puppies were out in the rain
The little black and white sheepdogs