Tag Archives: the past

Peasants in late Medieval London faced extreme violence

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According to recently published research, “Peasants in medieval London faced extreme violence”.

Skulls of peasants unearthed in the UK’s capital show a much greater number of fractures than do those of the upper classes and it is conjectured that many died soon after having received their injuries.

The researchers believe that due to the cost of the legal system, peasants in Medieval London had no ability to employ barristers so would frequently settle their disputes in bar or street brawls, many of which ended in death. Interestingly most of these brawls appear to have taken place on Sunday, which was the only day peasants had off.

In contrast the better off residents of London had recourse to legal representation to settle disputes or, if they did engage in duelling, they wore armour which greatly reduced the danger of death.

For this interesting article please visit, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4833460/Peasants-late-medieval-London-faced-extreme-violence.html.

Twenty-Seventeen

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The weather is drear
And none save my dog is near.
The new year
Beccons
As seconds
Are here then gone.
The clock’s hands move on
Towards twenty-seventeen.
I have no magic screen
To gaze into the future, but stupidity
And that age-old vice cupidity
Will, I venture to maintain
Continue to reign.

The human race
Has a face
Half devil and part divine.
There is a fine
Line
Between the two.
Looking through
History one finds dreams of utopia turning to hell,
Yet one can not tell
The idealist that he is wrong,
For he will answer you with the same old song,
“If everyone did such and such then all would be well”!
But we are saints with feet of clay
And the utopian’s way
Leads many to stray
Down the path to the ever lasting bonfire
Where the desire
To do good ends in the Gulag and the stamp
Of the fanatic’s boot in the concentration camp.

Small acts of kindness matter
And oft times achieve more than the chatter
Of those
Who would dragoon
Humanity into neat little rows.
And believe there is a man in the moon.

Flame

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Thought
Caught
In the flames of this fire,
Fanning my desire
For a past when the publican laid logs
In fireplaces
And drinker’s faces
Gathered around the blaze as their dogs
Lazed beside the eternal flame.

It is not the same
Since the pub changed hands. The beer
Remains unchanged, yet I fear
The flame does not burn as bright
Of a winter’s night
And the grate is too often cold.

Slavery’s Stain

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The crack of the whip
Does strip
The past bare.
Who would dare
To lift the curtain
For it is certain
To make the sensitive squirm.

Growing up in Liverpool I was told
A tale of how the city was built on slave owner’s gold.
Many there money gave
In the hope their soul to save
To schools and foundations
That dignify the nation.

What can one say
For it is a long way
Back and distance
Leads to resistance
To compensation
For the Caribbean and African nations.
An injustice vast
Stains our past
But should the Europeans of today
Pay for the injustices of yesterday?

One can apologise for one’s own mistake
But what good can an apology make
For a wrong long gone
And done by another one?

Great Britain abolished slavery in 1807
And all was right and god was in his heaven.
No,
The woe
Caused by slavery did persist,
But should one then insist
On the payment of gold
To right wrongs untold?

We can not and should not forget
And yet
We must move on.
The slave owners are gone
And to apply modern morality to the past
Is, perhaps a thankless task.
Can we in conscience ask the guiltless of today
To reparations pay?
And, if so to whom
For the gloom
Has long since closed
Over those
Who where so cruely whipped
And stripped.

(https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/24/slave-owning-families-influenced-uk-jane-austen-modern-rroyalty-eugenie-beatrice).

Nostalgia

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In a recent article in The Daily Mail, entitled “Forget the Age of Plenty, We Were Happier in the 1700’s” (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3756368/Forget-age-plenty-happier-1700s-Briton-s-content-life-era-slums-gin-mothers-workhouses-today.html), it is reported that research shows the 18th century was the period in which people were happiest, despite the grinding poverty in which much of the population lived.
The above article reminded me of a comment made by a reviewer of my collection of poetry “Lost in the Labyrinth of My Mind” that “ There is a feeling of nostalgia in some poems, e.g. “Modernity”, (https://emmalee1.wordpress.com/2016/05/11/lost-in-the-labyrinth-of-my-mind-k-morris/). The poem is reproduced below in order that my readers may judge for themselves:

“Give me something real

Not this plastic I feel.

Give me books in cloth boards

That I may not be bored.

Give me a chime

To measure time.

Give me solid wood

To caress and love.

Give me objects that last

A link to the past.

The world moves fast

Vast

Nothingness beccons.

Enumerable seconds

engaged

In rage

Against the gleam

Of the machine

That haunts my dream”.

(For “Modernity” and the other poems in “Lost in The Labyrinth of My Mind” please visit http://moyhill.com/lost/.

School Days

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I recall The library’s high shelves
Where I would delve
For books.
Often I forsook
My peers
To read
And on solitude feed.

All those years
Gone by.
I sigh
And wonder why
The past holds such sway.
And we humans lose ourselves in yesterday.
Oh how easy it is to perspective lack
As we gaze back
Down childhood’s track.

I remember the schoolyard’s din
And the wanting to join in.
Sometimes I ran with the crowd
Yet my nature proud
Held me apart
And I solace found in art.

I see the library now
And wonder how
The school goes on
Now that I am gone
An whether books still stand
Waiting to command
The future poet’s hand.

Train

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My thoughts travel back
Down history’s track.
I hear the clack
Of the wheels of the train
Running through my nostalgic brain.
I recollect separate carriages, each with an individual door,
And me reading,
My imagination feeding
On the contents of a magazine,
Today, no longer seen.
Who could ask for more?

Often I sat alone.
There was No mobile phone
To disturb my contemplation.
The nation
Has moved on.
And the old characterful trains have gone.
I have to accept
That which I would reject,
A perfect world of plastic and chrome
Where man sits alone
Conversing with his friend, the phone.

—

I remember travelling on trains with separate carriages, each compartment having comfortable seats and holding (if memory serves correctly) a maximum of 6 people. The

On The Closure Of A Retro Shop

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The retro
Must go.
A version of the past
Is sold off fast.
Perhaps I will take a look.
Perchance happen upon an old book.
I meant to visit before
But now the door
Will soon close
On retro clothes.
People are interested in the old ways.
The days
When all was right, or seemed so.
The stock must go
For a song.
Before long
Another business will take the shop’s place.
The bland corporate face
Will occupy another space.
We race
Knowing not where we are going
Or what we may be sewing.
Without a feel for the past
The future beccons, bleak and vast.

Thoughts Of Norwood Past

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It is a quiet new year’s day
A weak sun shows his face
Then hides away.
I awoke to pigeons cooing
Thoughts of a bygone age
And country folk a-wooing.
The pigeons are silent now
No more do sheep or cow
Pass.
No country lass
Gazing in the glass
Will say
“’Tis new year’s day.
I must away
To milk.
No dress of silk
For such as I.
Only the vaulted sky
And my love
For one who is nigh”.

(http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol26/pp167-173).