Family History

Did she nag him too much?

‘Why do I have to say everything twice?’
was a regular refrain

as was
‘You don’t listen to a word I say.
I may as well be speaking Double Dutch.’

and
‘Too stuck up to speak to your own mother!
Just who do you think you are,
Little Lord Fauntleroy?’

‘I’m just a boy,’ he thought,
‘Just a little boy.’

He’d have liked it to be all nice
and cosy
like it was at his friend’s house.

His friend’s mum was constant cuddles
and mince pies
and jam tarts and lemonade
and ‘Do you want to stay for tea?’

The opposite to his Mum.

And just who did his Mum think she was,
Attila the Hun?

*  *  *

He wasn’t an easy child
and, in those days,
bringing him up alone
(his father long gone)
was hard.

And as he grew bigger, taller,
stronger,
it became harder.

I had to be firm.
And I always tried
to point him in the right direction.

So how did he repay me?

At the first opportunity
he ran away to sea.
In search of what?
Adventure? A safe harbour?
His father?

Did I nag him too much?

He hasn’t stayed in touch.


Mother