The motorway cuts through it. It was always
a proper Cheshire country lane with
ditches and hedgerows of may and oak
but it remained an unpaved track subject
to the weathers. Travellers or Roma –
though ‘Gypsies’ or ‘Irish Tinkers’ we called them
then – with grass for their hirsute ponies,
their caravans obscured by the hedges
and their shy kids safe from the odd car,
would camp there. We would try to explore,
to find where it led, hoping for some mansion
occupied by GIs with their comics
and gum. But, each time we tried, one of the men,
the same one always – wiry, dark haired, sharp eyed –
would send us packing with a raised fist
and a curse. One summer, near dusk, we crept
as close as we dared. The man was seated,
on a stool, playing a guitar. Somewhere,
out of sight, a woman was singing.
We got a telling off, home after dark,
and my spinster aunt sang, unbidden,
‘I’m away wi’ the raggle taggle gypsy-o!’
I drive by what remains of the lane often
and always, out of the corner of my eye,
look – as if there were something to see
other than grass and weeds.
By David Selzer