A Brief Visit To Mellor Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

Expecting a call from distant ancestors
I had checked in at the Millstone Hotel
In Mellor on a warm autumn evening.
After sitting in the snug nursing a beer
And wolfing down a Lancashire Hotpot
I wandered out to the churchyard.

There sure enough was a Shorrock grave
And in the morning I drove to Shorrocks Hey
Stopped by the gate and watched the cows.
When he fled Salford to escape a debt or a girl
My grandfather, who was a bit of a lad,
Ditched the family name for anonymity
But his male-line chromosomes betrayed him
And I tracked down old deeds to Pendle Hill.

My father, who was killed before I was born
Had died a hero flying in Bomber Command
And I willed him to be with me now -
The two of us beguiled by history
Taking our journeys with false papers
Come home to clear our names.

I wanted us to smell the air of old haunts
Be stung by the nettles, eat the blackberries
Feel the stones of the old cottages
But taking a last look at the village
Someone made that call and I saw him
A tall blond youth so very like my own eldest son

I had seen that same boy in Jerusalem
Among a detachment of Israeli conscripts
The others dark and unfamiliar, he blond
And as he looked towards me I owned him.
That makes three sons of killing age.
And now I hear the ram bleat and a still small voice.