A Cheshire Lad Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

Young Mike Dutton
Blew his head off with a 12-bore shotgun
At Moat Bank Grange - late at night -
After a Young Farmers' Dance in Tarporley.

His parents heard an argument
In the yard below their bedroom window
After he had been delivered home
To the farm - worse for wear.

Everybody said that he went off his rocker
After he had had a skin-full
And then fought and lost a fight
With John Ashley over a girl - Janice Vickers.

At first, he wouldn't get out of the car
And his friends had to shove him out
But then he went to the tack room
Broke open the gun and loaded a couple.

‘Don't be such a silly bugger Mike
Point the gun down or put it down.
It dunna matter that much' said his friend
From the backseat, ‘plenty more fish in the sea'.

But there was more to it than that.
His parents had off-loaded the farm for a small fortune
With the land sold to the Kinseys across the twenty acre
And the buildings planned for conversion to houses.

And they had just bought a spanking-new 4-bedroom
Detached in Little Budworth with a conservatory,
Intending to live high and fancy on the proceeds,
With Mrs D getting the Volvo she had always wanted.

Which for Mike meant leaving Moat Bank with its
Old-beamed farmhouse, round-windowed lofts,
Its fields, and the brook and its willows
And becoming a Farm Labourer.