Soltys of Solway
My name is john
I am the son of a slave
My father was taken into slavery
At the age of fourteen
Where he was forced to work in a quarry
With other emaciated half starved boys
The quarry was guarded by gunmen
Who played target practice with the exhausted
My father survived by his wits and his strength
When he was liberated he searched for his family
When no trace could be found his liberators offered
To transport him to their island and look after him
Once he got to the island it was to the bleak north
Near a wide river estuary where the winter winds cut to the marrow
in yet another camp enclosed in a fence bedecked with barbed wire
My father thought it strange that the first three letters
of his name matched those of the river?
In time
and on the basis of his forest dwelling history
he was given work with the Forestry Commission
and sent to the borderlands where he was set with the task
of planting thousands of pine trees which he felt
had nothing to do with the word Forestry
at the end of each day
with his overalls smelling of pine
he’d explain it to me
of our ancestry
and what freedom meant
...truly meant....to Freemen and Slavs
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