I have a proposal for the 2021 blog project. I will post, on this blog, poems in the category ‘Poems About Abingdon‘. They could be written by you or they could be poems we can get the rights to publish. You have until end of September. Some will go into a book of poems and pictures called ‘Ten Poems About Abingdon‘. All rights will remain with the author. Send poems to backstreet60@gmail.com .

Here to start us off is a verse I have been trying to write …

Walking the 1556 Abingdon Bounds

Eighty people and two mutts
meet as planned on New Years’ Day.
The Town Crier swings his bell and cries,
‘God Bless the Queen! Hear ye!’ ‘Hear ye!’

The leader welcomes ‘one and all’
to walk the ancient Borough Bounds
where Mayor and Council once paraded
to know by heart their chartered lands.

Refashioned as a two hour walk
to help us trim our growing waists –
filled with turkey, bowls of nuts,
selection boxes, After Eights.

Not long until we’re back at work –
down East St Helen Street we walk.
Some saunter, chatting, in the road
and regroup at St Helen’s Wharf.

The leader reads the Tudor route
and then a modern commentary
‘… from aforesaid Helen’s Bridge …
to the new promontory …’

Herding idlers to the Park
The Town Crier rings and hails ‘The Queen!’
Albert’s statue stands aloft –
taken young – what he has seen!

We come across a boundary stone
warn smooth and without date or number.
A New Year cry again resounds
And wakes the sleepers from their slumber.

The town has broken all its bounds
with modern houses, gardens, walls.
The boundary stones are overgrown,
The River Thames floods and sprawls.

By the weir we cross the River
and note a boundary stone marked ‘A’ –
used as a latch – for a gate,
‘What a shame!’ the people say.