Songs from the kitchen

(For Dicky Deegan’s Da)

Steam rises – a kettle whistle crescendos and fades

– the mammy lifts it from the Yorkist range –

the only English thing in the kitchen.

Around a table more aged than them all

Old and young – daughters and sons

Prepare to bear the pall.

At the table Ted once assembled pipes

– most beauteous Heath Robinson contraption

played inventively to teach and learn and show

That Ted – like his music – will never really go.

‘In-your-hand’ cups of tea

Provide distraction therapy

And the whistle’s now the

kitchen’s only song.