THURSDAY 19th NOVEMBER 2020 ~ POETRY ~ BLOG POST

The cruel decline of a brilliant husband of a poet

(A fictional tale of a fictional meeting)

by John Yeo

Quite a good bus service here in Huddersfield,

The bus station was busy but empty,

It was a chilly day in town with a sharp wind. 

I sat waiting next to a gent in a raincoat, 

He puffed on his pipe and looked content.

Suddenly he turned to me and said,

“I was a boy in this area, it’s changed”.

I murmured a response and nodded.

~

 The wind picked up, then I asked my friend,

“What time is the next bus due to arrive?”

“I’m not too sure, Mary will know,” he replied.

“There was a huge gasometer down the road,

Near the grammar school that I attended.

My name is James, they called me Jim at school”

The cruel wind was blowing mercilessly,

A bus arrived, already full, so Jim and I sat still.

~

A kindly lady bustled along, “There you are Harold!

I’ve looked everywhere for you, the driver is waiting, 

The car is here”, She looked at me and smiled.

“I hope he has not been any trouble, I’m Mary”.

My friend looked at me, “Thank you for listening”

Pulled his raincoat collar up against the cruel wind.

~~Of change~~ “Mary I’m coming love,

I was Prime Minister, once you know”.

~

I sat stunned as realisation dawned,

My mind raced over the conversation

I would like to have had before his resignation

And cruel mental decline from Alzheimer’s disease.

How he kept us out of the Vietnam war,

Awarded The Beatles an MBE

During a very long week in politics

Foreseeing the “white heat of technology”.

My companion had been none other than,

James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rielvaux.

~

©️ Written by John Yeo~ All rights reserved.

This is a poem I wrote several years ago based on a real life Prime Minister of the UK from 1964 to 1970. 1974 and 1976

He sensationally resigned shortly after his 60th birthday. It has been suggested he was in the early stages of Altzheimers disease when he resigned and some recent tests seem to bear this out.

He died in 1995 aged 79 of colon cancer and Altzheimers disease.

He was buried in St Mary’s in the  Isles of Scilly.

His wife Mary Wilson was an accomplished published poet.

Mary Wilson’s poem on Harold’s death….

My love you have stumbled slowly

On the quiet way to death

And you lie where the wind blows strongly

With a salty spray on its breath.

For this men of the island bore you

Down paths where the branches meet

And the only sounds were the crunching grind

Of the gravel beneath their feet

And the sighing slide of the ebbing tide

On the beach where the breakers meet

Lady Mary Wilson lived to be 102 passing away on 7th June 2018 in London and her ashes are buried in St Mary’s in the Isle of Scilly.