Two Poems by G.F. Phillips

East Wind*


NEWSBOY: Get your papers!
Get your papers!

BYSTANDER: Huh! Them papers!
They make us or break us,
Whatever way they want us t’ be
They just talk doon t’ ye an’ me.

Well, Ta, bonny lad
Aw! Me pins are feelin’ bad
While ye stand cold and snivelling’
I’m gannin’ home a-shiverin.’

CHORUS: In that East Wind
Branches bend west,
Breakin’ what’s old,
Leavin’ what’s best.

TWO SHOPPERS: But we’ve had t’ find shelter
Round this shoe shop corner,

1st SHOPPER: Lookin’ at shoes

2nd SHOPPER: Just for something t’ do.

CHORUS: For that east Wind
It gives us trouble;
But let’s not forget
It’s the same for us all.

• A tempera panel, by Harry Wilson, one of the Pitman Painters of Ashington, Northumberland, 1935.
• ‘In the panel, disposed around a street corner that represents all the essentials of a two-point perspective, saplings whip in the wind, figures are tugged, a newsboy blows on his fingers and, to leeward, three becalmed shoppers look at a shoe display.’ William Feaver, Art Critic of the Sunday Observer.

Bait Time*

Wi’ me pick I have t’ hack away,
Me back and shoulders achin’;
I make black nuggets smash and fall,
It’s grit and sweat I’m tastin’.

Oh, Bait time is a long time comin’.
Bait time is a long way doon.
Bait time is a long time comin’.
Bait time cannot come t’ soon.

And me pony hauls wagons away,
Me marra does his share;
It’s thirsty work – it seems ne end
In this foul and dirty air -.

Oh, bait time, etc.

Me hunger pangs have come on strong
Wi’ me belly’s rumblin’ tark.
I stoop by wagons that we fill,
What I feed keeps us in work.

Oh, bait time, etc.

Me sarnies have their rich fruit seam,
Me pony grabs a bit;
And when it’s broken off for him
He makes short work o’ it.

Oh, bait time was a long time comin’.
Bait time man and beast must choose.
Bait time was a long time comin’.
Bait time there’s ne time t’ lose’.

* based on a painting by Jimmy Floyd, Bait Time, 1946.
‘Experience gives to Jimmy Floyd’s Bait Time its air of complicity as the pony reaches over to take a bit of jam sandwich.’
(from Pitmen Painters: The Ashington Group 1934-1984 by William Feaver, Mid-Northumberland Arts Group, Carcanet Press, 1993).