POEM of the day

Sheila Templeton won first prize in the 2014 McCash Scots Poetry Competition (on the theme of “Now Then”) with this touching memoir of a family survivor of the First World War. The table mustard the old man likes has an ironic echo of the mustard gas of the trenches.

MIXIN MUSTARD This morning aready ahint itsel wummen fowk back fae the kirk, lobby sweelin smells o dairk-birstled beef -time tae mak the mustard. Granda likes it mixed wi milk, maumie, sweet. Lang syne he wis a sapper, diggin, buildin, shorin up that endless front line. Lucky…if luck is tae thole bein wounded three times ower, sent hame – an back – ivery time. Oan the back o his haan, ahint his ear, thick purple forlies, shrapnel they couldna dig oot, prood-skin protectin like the nascence that growes ower oyster grit. He winna spik o it, though it’s forty year syne; winna spik o the snaa and sleet slicin his haans the dubbit depths o Passchendaele, the sichts he saa. Jist ae fingger depth in, grun stapped wi the deid -men, horses, gassed, droont in glaur; niver spiks o the freens he lost nor the soonds he heard. Nae even if we prig and plead will he tell us fit he minds on. But he’ll nip a sly bittie beef faan the ashet’s set oan the table. ‘Bonne-bouche!’ he’ll rummle-laugh. An he’ll sing sometimes ‘Mademoiselle from Armitieres… inkey pinkey parley vous!’ say ‘Wipers’ an ‘Sa ne Fairey-Ann’ – a lirk tae his mou meanin ‘I ken fine I dinna really spik French.’ Efters, he’ll tak us for a waak tae the auld kirk-yaird, past Berrymoss Well wi its tin cup and sweet icy watter; or heist Sandy oan his bike, me in the sidecar – Balmedie wi its lang white sand an green north sea. The mustard’s ready. I pit it by his plate. He’ll smile and say ‘Ah quinie, ye minded. I like it faan it’s melled wi milk.’