Richard Rees Finally - Richard Rees

Finally

Richard H Rees 24/02/21

FINALLY, this is a poem written by my son that I’m particularly proud of, showing a sensitivity of feeling far beyond his then 12 years. At that time, he attended a boy’s private school in Ellesmere, Salop, which, because it was but some 10 miles over the Welsh-English border from our home in Gresford, outside Wrexham, he was allowed to attend as a day pupil, By the end of his first week, and despite his permanent innocent look and tousled hair, his house-master, Mr. Skipper, became convinced he was the ringleader of a sudden spate of subversive pupil rebellion that had arisen in his form. So convinced was he that when Huw submitted the poem for the school magazine, he couldn’t believe Huw had composed it, and rang me querying it, suspecting it was my work. It was only after my protestations I’d never seen or read the poem before he finally accepted Huw really was its author, and it was accepted and published as his.
A year later, we moved to the Gower Peninsula, South Wales to live, and again Huw attended
a private school in Swansea. Once more, the Head, Dr Priddy, grew convinced he was behind a similar spate of sudden subversive pupil rebellion in his new class, on one occasion trying to cram as many boys as possible into a WC (a sort of the schools’ Guinness Book of Records). Attracted by the noise, Dr. Priddy investigated, and 27 cramped boys extricated themselves from it, with Huw the last to emerge. ‘I should have suspected you were behind it, Jones,’ Dr. Priddy said, to which Huw replied, ‘It wasn’t my behind down the bowl, it was my head and shoulders, sir.’ He got 6 whacks for that remark. When Huw submitted the poem for the school’s magazine, Dr. Priddy was of the same view as Mr. Skipper the year previous, and invited me to call on him in his study to air his suspicions that the Huw Jones he knew couldn’t possibly have written it. It was only at my continued confirmation he had, that he accepted it and it was again published.
When he left school, Huw joined the police force and became a dedicated upholder of the law.
This is the poem:

WAR
By Huw Jones

The guns, the men, are all now dead.
The earth mantled a muddy red.
No birds are wheeling in the sky.
Creatures, shivering in terror, lie.
Black lifeless trees with uptorn roots,
Flowers trampled by bloodied boots.
‘Til very nature wonders why,
And lonely loved ones sit at home and cry.

Finally

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