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tenants

SERMON ON THE MOUNT

The plaque has been placed high onto the front wall

of a terraced house in the street next to ours –

and is, in effect, a terracotta tile,

roughly a foot-and-a half by a foot,

with a raised border, and lettering

and numerals probably executed

by a gravestone mason, who maybe lived there.

The date inscribed is 1872 –

the words, first in English and then in Welsh,

‘Blessed are the meek. Matthew V.v’.

 

When the railways came in the 1850s

bringing the London-Holyhead line,

the station became an important one.

Chester was a garrison city,

and Ireland always needed pacifying.

Where we live now was developed

to house the families of working class

skilled men and lower middle class clerks

in exclusively rented accommodation,

which makes the plaque a surprise: not its faith,

nor its grave taste, nor its erudition –

the railway junction attracted migrants

over the border from the poverty

of North East Wales – but that mere tenants

should have had the courage to declare their right

to a place in the world. That, on reflection,

was perhaps the point of the Beatitudes,

and whoever it was who crafted them.

 

 

 

‘A WINDY DAY’ & ‘A CALM MORNING’

 

A WINDY DAY, J.M.W.TURNER Tabley, the seat of Sir J.F. Leicester

They bought up land, made marriages, dispossessed

tenants and built their fortune on rents.

These commissions mark their zenith. Since then,

the estate has been sold off acre by

acre, piece by piece – one Turner remains,

the other hangs in another museum.

Some things are unchanged: in the distance,

the house’s palladian exterior

in local sandstone, the round turreted

folly on the small island in the lake – an ancient

Cheshire mere. Gone are the fishing boats

tacking on the choppy water or anchored

in the pink stillness just after dawn.

Whatever fishes thrive are largely

unmolested and aircraft rise from Ringway

five miles or so to the north. But England

continues – consuming, class ridden.

A CALM MORNING, J.M.W.TURNER