A Quiet woman
After my recent small success (runner up out of 5000
entrants in Sage life story comp) I was touched to receive warm congratulations
from a number of old members of a couple of writing groups – now defunct – I
used to belong to.
One of them – Doris Sloley had had her poetry book published
and was going to be reading from it at our library on National Poetry Day. I decided to go and support her and buy her
book which she obligingly signed.
Doris always emanated a warm tranquillity – quite rare in
writer’s circles –and to me she personifies Somerset
and Exmoor.
She was born between Wheddon Cross and Timberscombe and moved to a farm
at the age of four. She composed her
first poem aged nine lying in bed at night.
Although she never wrote it down she can still remember it. At thirteen, encouraged by her teacher, she wrote
four poems which appeared in the school magazine.
Then she had a fallow
period when she was aware her poetry didn’t come up to Keats or Tennyson and writing poetry was considered very
eccentric. You didn’t tell anyone you
wrote poetry.
She had an idyllic childhood on the farm with her beloved sheep and all the sights, sounds
and smells of Exmoor. When she was about 39 her father retired from
farming. This was a traumatic time for Doris; she
took a job in an office but after three
years the stress of life in the fast lane got to me and I had a nervous
breakdown.
Jenny Glanfield who encouraged and helped Doris
put the book together says:
unlike so much contemporary poetry you don’t need a key to get into Doris’s poems; there is no intellectual barrier shutting out the reader. On the contrary her poems are ‘hooky’-
hooking you in and making you want to read on.
Dipping into Bluebells, Rainbows and Sheep over the
last week I have found this to be true.
In Doris’s words it is accessible. It is beautifully illustrated with Doris’s old photos underlying the verse as if one is
looking through the mist of the years
I asked Doris which was her
favourite poem and she said that was like asking a mother which was her favourite
child. .
Heartbreak, joy, sadness and humour are present in this
book.
What more is there?
Return to Exmoor
by Doris Sloley
Pick me a bluebell,
next time you go there.
Walk through the wood
and on over the stream,
Up the green slope
with grasshoppers singing,
Just where I,
oftentimes go in my dreams.
I can go back,
myself, if I want but
If I return to the
place that I knew,
All of my memories
will crowd in and then
I shall be sad- but
it’s different for you.
You haven’t known the
fun of haymaking,
Watched tadpoles
wriggle and dart in the pond,
Helped to ‘head out’
a corn rick by moon light,
Rode through the
fields to the moorland beyond,
Run to a meadow where
lambs were playing,
Skipping and racing
in boundless delight,
Climbed up the hill
where we would go sledging
In winter when all
was coated in white.
Is there a tree,
still, in the old orchard?
Can you find lanes
where wild strawberries grow?
Are there
blackberries, now in the cow field?
Do you hear calls of
a distant curlew?
I want to keep all
these memories of mine
Locked up in my
heart, unaltered by time.
Doris now lives in the pretty village of Monksilver
– so near and yet so far. On a lighter
note;
Compliment – or Not
It was all a long,
long time ago
And I’ve no regrets,
not now.
But did you have to
give my name to
Your pedigree
Friesian cow?
This is a book I shall be keeping close to hand. Available from Amazon £9.99
