The ghostly bump of the forge steam hammer sound...
By Tom Wilbraham
Along Jacksdale’s Portland Wharf with sadness I look around,
As I ponder my thoughts of what used to be,
A ghostly bump of the forge steam hammer would sound.
The old canal basin alongside Stone Row for hours & hours as a boy, I’d play.
But now it’s all gone into history past,
Even the old iron bridge is rusting away.
Across the iron bridge on the path through the works,
Some spectacular sights to be seen in the place.
As the furnaces roared and the metal was quenched,
I can still feel the vapour and steam on my face.
I Remember the rolling mills, screeching and clanging,
The giant forge chimney polluting the air.
Now it’s all dereliction,
Perhaps it was all fiction.
No one seems to bother anymore,
No one seems to care.
As I stumble across the derelict site,
The chimneys, the buildings reduced to the ground.
I ponder my thoughts of what used to be, and hear,
The ghostly bump of the forge steam hammer sound.
By Tom Wilbraham (From the video ‘Little Fanny Fletcher’)
