First, W stood for Whitemere
And it circled me in
An artists’ haven
Colours clamouring the whiteness walls.
In the mornings
Clods of clay
Were 11year old moulded
Into a flock of stamp-sized ducks
Blue glazed
Kiln glistened
Taken home to roost on shelves.
Three years stood around
Artists’ benches
There was no seating plan
We didn’t even sit-
We wandered the room
It was our room, after all,
For those morning minutes
And there we were safe.
When W followed me seawards
It didn’t mean anything
Other than the fourth letter in a place name
It didn’t have a house or a colour
It was almost just W.
But echoes of Whitemere
and the artist haven
Dropped me in a woodwork workshop.
Kilns and potters’ wheels
Swapped for jigsaws and lathes;
Sawdust now not paper
Confettiing the floor;
Heady smell of wood
Papier-mâchéd over paint.
At lunchtimes
Turned into a haven once more
From the schoolyard.
And we didn’t sit then either.
I think we sort of
Leaned against work benches
Chisled away down-time
Twisting G clamps
Open and shut, and open and shut again.
A few of us not cut out
For the cut-throat yard.
Two gentle men
Gentlemen who guided me through
Doing what a tutor should do
Modelling for me how a tutor should be:
There.
Simply. There.
In your place
When school was too big
Or you felt too small.