Childhood Memories

New Royd Gate Cottage

I recently went back to the cottage, where I was born, after not having been there for many years. The cottage was in a poor state having not been inhabited for many years…and my thoughts went back to growing up there as a small child


Memories come back as I walk down the lane
Past the cottage where I was born
It’s now just a ruin without windows or roof
With the path to the door so well worn


This cottage not lived in for many a year
With no sign of the love that was there
Just left as a dark and silent old place
In desperate need of some care


No sign of the well at the end of the lane
Where my father would go every morning
To carry our water back home to the house
If it hadn’t dried up without warning


That hearth for the fire now empty and cold
Which my mother would make up daily
With the wind whistling down that old chimney
How quickly that moment’s a memory


I wish you could see things through my eyes now
As I look at this ruin of today
And hear those long lost magical sounds
Of that child long ago at play