Where I Played

By Patricia Preece, Burnley

The dusty streets of the old mill town
terraced houses sit up in rows
Black smoke bellowing from chimney pots
Working folk on the go.

What is this place I play within?
Where smoke gets in my hair
Dusty streets and cotton mills
And kids whose feet were bare.

Two miles away there were green fields
Where I ran so free as a lass
I laughed with friends, we played hide and seek
In the long Pleasington grass.

Where birds flew and tree branches swayed
And good fresh air went up my nose
Where rabbits ran through the shadowy woods
And you could hear squawking from the crows.

All around posh houses stood, a different world to me
Cars in driveways, gardens with pristine short grass
Folk who lived here were upper middle class.

Yet my heart lay in those dusty streets
Where folk and friends thrived
Where uneven cobbles looked two miles long
But today those cobbles haven’t survived.