He walked to the gate while the soft summer wind stirred the oak,
and the sun reflectively smiled in the ruts on the road,
to greet his brother Ted who’d languidly move across
so that Vic could companionably lean and look at their cattle
grazing under the Breckland pine, and reflect.
He drove his tractor and tended his fields,
enjoying the changing seasons but moaned about fen blows,
and unexpected showers which slowed the combine,
good naturedly grumbling with other farmers
about the price of fat cattle, the return on wheat,
and how many potatoes are in a packet of crisps,
when at Bury market on a Wednesday.
He’d sit to the left of the door of the Cricket Club
contentedly watching Lakenheath bat,
and readily smiled when they’d hit a six,
bringing his big brown hands together
to join in the ripple of applause.
He’d bring his prince of a Yorkshire to where
his grandchildren drooled ready for turkey
with all the trimmings, and fresh vegetables,
hearing the microwave hum, cooking the pudding
whose brandy sauce bit, before heading the evening games,
candidly laying a domino, announcing to all concerned
"Another fifteen."
He’d talk about the little black pony he drove as a youth
over top Maiden Cross Hill to Brandon,
with a cart full of produce, hating the finicky woman
who always made him eager for home.
He hoed his little bit of garden, and happily cut a lettuce for his tea,
another to pop round a neighbours' with a hand full of beans,
and a third to lay with the sack of spuds waiting for his children.
He watched the Weakest Link, and commented
on the stupidity of students, and foolish woman
wishing to spend a thousand on a handbag, and reckoned that:
“If there were more men like brother George,
who was straight and true, the world would be a better place.”
He laid in bed in the moonlight, listening
to golden oldies of yesteryear, and Victor Palmer,
the father of five, my dear Father, a gentle giant of a man,
a man of the soil, dreamed of his garden…
wrote this for my Dad's funeral as wanted to catch his essence for his friends and family to take home
