Safe Return

Ship’s log
P&O liner SS Chusan
Yokohama to London
11:00 hrs 4th April 1954

At sea
Heaved to 1 mile SE of Valetta
Wind NW force 4
Cloud and sun
Visibility good
60 ͦ

Stowaway
Found in hold
Naresh Choudhury (?) age 16 (?)
Came on board with cargo
Cotton and jute
Bombay March 20th 1954

Crew of ship’s cutter
Transferred stowaway
To P&O liner SS Canton
Southampton to Singapore
Via Suez Aden Bombay
Columbo Penang

Stowaway received by
Petty Officer and Bosun
SS Canton
Taken into custody

…

Chris Hardy’s poems have been widely published. His collection ‘Key to the Highway’ appeared from Shoestring Press in summer, 2021. He is in LiTTLe MACHiNe. “A guitarist as well as a poet Chris always hits the right note”. Roger McGough.

A Stop on the Way

Instead of asking,
This one or the next?
turn into a lane
where signposts promise
quiet hamlets
settled in fields.

One offers ‘St Stephen’s Church’,
a Victorian tower on older walls,
and a pew labelled
‘In memory of Lucy,
who loved this place’.

Summer heat but after rain
the grass and trees welcome it.
We sit awhile, long enough,
then drive back to the highway
that heads west over the hill,

the highest point round here.
Beyond it farms, rivers,
lanes and crossroads,
all the way to the coast
where we must go
together.

 

Chris’s poems have been widely published.
He is in LiTTLe MACHiNe www.little-machine.com 
His collection ‘Sunshine at the end of the world’ is published by Indigo Dreams Publications. http://www.indigodreams.co.uk/chris-hardy/4593968553
‘A guitarist as well as a poet Chris Hardy consistently hits the right note”. Roger McGough.