Jean Murphy
The Railway Children
When the kitchen cupboard fell off the wall
dad put it at the bottom of the garden
for now.
Upturned in the waist-high grass
it was a boat or a car,
but mainly a train, my brother
miming along with the real ones.
Sometimes his mates would join in.
The neighbours complained about
the convolvulus that covered the wire fence
throwing up an enchanted wall between us
and the embankment,
about the nightshade and nettles
where the ghost of a rose bower remained
and red-hot-pokers persisted,
about what mum called a wild-life reservation
where cats hunted, girls read and John buried
dad’s drill because of the way the bits fitted,
the feel of the good wooden handle,
the whole mechanism of it.
Page(s) 19
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