I want to hold your hand today,

you made me far too independent

and I am so far away, a life time

perhaps, a sense of searching for identity

urging me on to be something more than

a boy of Cornwall and a son of the Midlands,

somewhere in between, always torn

between the two and with the honour

of both branded, indelibly tattooed,

deep into my sometimes angry,

always passionate heart.

As you wait at home for news

from the calling of the foundry,

the iron bell and the tin mine,

I don’t want to be an adult,

if it means I cannot hold your hand again.

Ian D. Hall 2017