PREFACE

DARLINGTON THROUGH LENS AND VERSE

A Personal History of the Town and its Surrounds

Contemporary photos are all my own

 

Now if any man here should ask

At onset of my onerous task

Why was I not sore averse

To painting this in doubtful verse?

Photos are fine, a camera would suit

But why took I the poet route?

Yet wonder not why rhyme I chose

Given that such a toil is prose

And so I’ll risk the Vogon dread

Wont to come when poems are read

For lens and verse you’ll not surpass

To mark the sigh of drifted past

To slow the march of days gone by

Of summers that too soon did fly

To recall raids and secret spies

In sun-lit fields ere their demise

Tonka Toys and hidden dens

Fleeting foes and long-lost friends

Unmarked loves and endless days

In little schools long since razed

But even armed with all of these

It’s still not clear that I’ll please

Care I not that few should buy it

May it please my own voices quiet