Bessie’s Big Day
by cricketjeff on June 6, 2011. © Jeff Green, All rights reserved
Defiantly wheezing she smokes as she goes
Approaching the hill where the lavender grows
Now passing the fields where the men used to toil
And she and her sister turned over the soil
Behind her, her daughters are forming a queue
The dignified old leading lines of the new
The hedges ignore her they don’t mind the noise
But gates boast a gaggle of goggle-eyed boys
A lay-by to lie in while modern cars pass
Then into a meadow of green summer grass
Her polished black paint shining bright in the sun
Awaiting tomorrow and carloads of fun
Sir Lancelot’s dodgems, and gallopers too
Three Fodens from Brighton will sparkle like new
An Aveling Roller and Showmen galore
But Bessie is Queen of the Steam tug-o-war
It’s off to the rally to witness the past
To honour these giants that vanished too fast
With sawing and threshing and ploughing to see
And maybe the best is these engines make tea!
Author notes
I just wrote a FV poem called Climbing the Hill, because Bessie didn’t want to
rhyme, and then she decided she would after all.
Bessie, if you haven’t guessed is a traction engine, probably a Fowler
ploughing engine from around 1910
English