Heather Anne from Bristol, England is starting us off with a beautiful poem for July.

I am from

I am from a city built of honeycomb coloured stone.

A city of elegant crescents and squares.

A city built on the wealth of Slave Traders.

I am from a paternal grandfather who enjoyed the football at Twerton Park.

I am from a paternal great grandfather who came home shell shocked from the Boer War.

I am from a paternal great great grandfather who entered running competitions on the streets of Bath.

Abel ran – he was a printer on the Chronicle.

I am from further up the Avon River.

Close to where John Hallett the cheesemonger lived.

The Whitings lived close to Lower Bristol Road.

Paradise Street, Wood Street, Westmoreland Buildings.

I am from a paternal grandmother who always wore a blue dress.

I am from a maternal grandmother whose first child was born when she was 38.

I am from a family of women who sewed their own clothes.

A family of women who did other people’s laundry.

I am from close to Twerton Roundhill.

A place we played on Sundays.

I am from the Sandpits – formerly a Brick and Tile Works.

I am from the Brickfields – a short cut through Victoria Brick Works.

I am from close to the Somerset and Dorset line.

The train that took us to the south coast.

I am from days on the beach of a Devon or Dorset resort.

I am not from a place where I saw a seahorse for the first and only time.

I am here now – and this is my home.

Heather Anne (Bristol)