By Martin Forster
walkers and ramblers sit on banks of Oxenhope station, as a dad and lad walk with gleeful elation, smoke, steam and hisses waft up on to platform deck, there stands guard, wit' cap and flag, keeping a check. so cameras are out and f2 is already set, as train moves out a station, pixels are met, snap, snap, snap the cameras capture steam and smoke, as fireman empties firebox of wood and coke, red embers come on out of big top stack, and driver and fireman wit' faces wet and black, neckerchiefs wrapped round necks, keeping sweat at bay, aye an' carriages are full of trippers, out for day, there's pink faces mixed with tourists from near and from far, sat excitedly wit' flask an' sarnies, aye an' a nice cup of char, an 'ours run, then they turn and run back the other way, happy when it's done to go home and say, mum, 'mum', dad took me on a old steam loco, an' he told me tales of fighting, an' ex-exploring Gran Orinoco, and the time, time he was on north west frontier, that's the Kyber Pass , i know you're gramps did a'fear, aye mum then he told me about when he'd rounded cape horn, and, and removed from lion an acacia thorn, then how he'd built Hadrian's wall just from scratch, and the goal he'd scored in final minute of '66 world cup match, ,, 'listen my darling' my little boy, ye dad tells stories both big and bold, he once told me, how at bottom of garden he'd found a hoard of gold, i believed him as well and thought we'd end up rich, and how he'd controlled crowd on white horse on Wembley's famous pitch, and armour he'd made from his own chain mail, an' Victoria cross he'd won at Paschendale even how he'd held of Germans without so much as a gun, then ont', Xmas day the football match he'd won for fun, so son take your dads tales with a pinch a' salt, i think it's his one and only minor fault, a good storyteller, aye one who likes to spin a yarn, did he tell ye' how for Crimean war, i'd knit, sew and darn, now if you think your dad can tell you a tale or two, wait till dinners finished and sit and listen through, so soon our little boy sat there and listened all enthralled, of his mums reminisces she easily recalled, how she'd taught Flo, you know Flo Nightingale all that she knew, aye and just like dad her nose just grew and grew and grew, so soon sonny jim thought. h'mm i'd better start making summat up, of how he'd drunk from holy font and won St Leger, Wimbledon and Cheltenham gold cup, now as you know, the Forster's families tales are passed down from both ma and pa, and in there minds they'd both travelled both near and far, but no further than Holbeck sands neither or neither of them had much ever been, BUT IN THEIR IMAGINATIONS SO MUCH MORE, HAD BEEN SEEN.
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