I Come From

From not-quite-Yorkshire;

I come from the borders.

From shadowy gardens and crowds of hydrangeas,

from hand-outs from neighbours;

motherless summers of sun and bare feet.

From free school dinners, a house full of lodgers,

too many sisters, too many brothers,

too many rooms to heat,

from spiders in corners and rats in the cellar.

Cobbles and grit and backstreet.

I come too clever for my own good

from spare the rod; from fear of God,

from unquestioning faith in nuns

and ghosts and all authority and Dad.

I come from the silence of fog

on far-off fields; from farm and bog

and crops gone bad,

from priests and Sunday’s boredom.

I come from the butter mountain

and the steady drip of fruit in bags

over buckets of stewing wine

and I come from the moors, as angry

as flame; from the hills

with the wings I was handed;

from the blank, blank page

of the rain. From Look and Learn,

I come from a dream, I come from stone.

I come from never did me any harm

and I too come from one bad man.

From silence. But not my own. 

Clare Shaw 

Clare Shaw was our creative writing tutor for WoW's What's Your Story? course with the Liverpool Mental Health Consortium. Clare has inspired the group to carry on working on their writing and performing as a group as the Rainbow Writers. 

We hope these pieces have inspired you to write your own. We look forward to seeing you on World Mental Health Day, 10th October, at the Central Library for our celebration event where a screening of Ruby Wax will be aired announcing the winners!