Great Norwood Street
POETRY
Great Norwood Street, Tivoli, Leckhampton
A terraced row of competing facades
Magnolia, Pink, Magnolia
Grey, Blue
Great Norwood Street
Trees my Frame,
Leckhampton Hill
my backdrop,
Just below Devil's Chimney.
Leaning slightly to my right
and people-watching,
This terrace heralds
graceful architecture
St Philip and St James
in Grafton Road,
betowered.
Leckhampton stands proud.
Its own town.
Its own high street in the 'old' Bath Road,
a stone's throw from
elegant tree-lined
Cheltenham,
a part of which it has now become.
Proud, very proud,
of its steep ascent
from Norwood Arms
o’er Leckhampton Hill
Past the battlement house
of “head found severed” fame
below the Devil’s Chimney
Onto the high Cotswolds,
Thence back in time
to Roman Britain,
along Ermin Street
to Cirencester…
And beyond … …
Back in the day
twas many a bod
convinced that the precarious rock
was indeed his “dark satanic mill”.
19 January 2024
All Rights Reserved
LIVERPOOL
© 2024 Kenneth Thomas Webb
All Digital Artwork by KTW
The main image is the first draft, hurriedly scribbled while enjoying a brief coffee.
First written on 5 June 2017 and revised in 2021 and 2024
I took this image as it’s a reminder that we need not feel we are unable to write simply because we don’t have our iPhone or tablet with us. With thanks to Tea at Ten 10 Great Norwood Street, penned while enjoying a most welcome cafetière of the finest coffee on a very pleasant Wednesday.
Great Norwood Street Tivoli Leckhampton ~ In the Mind’s Eye
Architecture, wherever we are, signifies how we have developed and how we currently stand, and even hinting at how we might be progressing or regressing as a community. I played around with thoughts of the town I grew up in, in the mind’s eye. These eight illustrations accurately capture those fleeting glimpses.
Ken Webb is a writer and proofreader. His website, kennwebb.com, showcases his work as a writer, blogger and podcaster, resting on his successive careers as a police officer, progressing to a junior lawyer in succession and trusts as a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives, a retired officer with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, and latterly, for three years, the owner and editor of two lifestyle magazines in Liverpool.
He also just handed over a successful two year chairmanship in Gloucestershire with Cheltenham Regency Probus.
Pandemic aside, he spends his time equally between his city, Liverpool, and the county of his birth, Gloucestershire.
In this fast-paced present age, proof-reading is essential. And this skill also occasionally leads to copy-editing writers’ manuscripts for submission to publishers and also student and post graduate dissertations.
