i
I wasn’t born;
I was thrown,
like some pot
crashing out
of the clouds.
ii
Thrown in the random way of rolling dice; I could have been born into various circumstances. The bingo of birth.
Thrown off course; a lingering sense of not being quite on track.
Thrown like a potters gesture to the wheel; shape as yet unformed, needing to be wedged and pounded, made malleable, over and over.
Thrown like a ball in a game; never quite settling, somewhat at the mercy of others choices, launched on an arc but uncertain to land back in my own hands.
iii
Writing as an attempt to deal with the consequences and feelings of thrownness. It's about making rhythm out of randomness. It's about getting back to the track or making meaning of multiple tracks. Life mixing. It's about dealing with fragments of a broken pot; a touch of kintsugi - the Japanese art of fixing the pot whilst honouring the cracks as potential patterns of beauty. It's about reclaiming my own ball, and balls. It's about catching myself out and also throwing myself in. Life story as love story. It's about finding out that the past is not a thing, but a plurality. My past is not just my past. It's not all about me.
iv
No mother, no me. On 2nd September 1961, in Copthorne Hospital, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, an amorphous 'me' was thrown into the world from the moisture of my mother's womb. I don't know if I wanted to breathe. Too much time in past lives as a fish. Give me gills. Crying probably saved my life. It probably still does. I was born with a quantum of bewilderment.
v
The first few years of my life, we lived at Roden House, next to the river Roden, on Mill Street, in Wem, a small market town in Shropshire. The large house had been divided up into three household sections. We had the front part with it's round-arched doorway and Ionic columns on either side. As a listed building, the early 19th century house is described as having a low pitched hipped Welsh slate roof, oversailing eaves with modillions, and quoin pilasters. I remember the ironwork porch with its tent-shaped roof.
Mum told me that I learned to walk when I realised that I had to get across the gravel drive to the lawn on the other side. On reaching the soft grass I would drop down to crawl again. A pragmatic strategy. I still need a bit of grit to keep me growing.
Apparently I loved playing in big cardboard boxes. My favourite, an Elkes Biscuit box. The smell of cardboard, the perfect blend of support and flexibility. A box-barrier from the wind, a shade from the sun.
vi
In the severe winter of January 1963 Edwina and Pauline Blackwood, neighbours, then living in the other third of Roden House, made a snowman in the garden. My first experience of exhilarating art. Harsh weather can be transformed into play. Snow is something else.
Snowman
The Blackwoods sculpted it that snowfall:
many times my height from a child’s point of view.
Boy, wrapped, gloved and jacketed in dark blue,
gazing up in devoted silent wonder
at the solid giant of whiteness.
Detached from the sound of mother’s call,
absorbed in the winter magic,
awed in the landscape of brightness.
The bonneted boy is about to explode
with joy, yet shivers in the daunting cold,
hovers on the edge of the snowman’s code,
senses the danger of the midwinter day,
knows, for the first time, this is more than play.
It is play, but it's all a bit overwhelming. The snowman is a mirror of potential. But he will also melt. The dark coals of his eyes will be left and end up fuelling the fire.
vii
The little boy doesn't know it then, of course, but only a few miles away, the Beatles are billed to play Whitchurch Town Hall in a few days time. On the 19th January 1963 the Beatles braved the 'Big Freeze' to play a less than sell out concert. They had just released their second single, Please Please Me, on Friday 11th January. The single went to No. 2 in the record retailer chart and No. 1 in both the New Musical Express and Melody Maker Charts. It will be one of the last of their smaller dancehall gigs that their manager Brian Epstein is honouring, as he knows they are on an exponential curve to greater things. It will take little Roger quite a few years to find out that his dad went to school with Brian Epstein, a few years to find his love of playing guitar, and a few more until he plays with his own rock band at Whitchurch Town Hall.
viii
And now, am I still thrown?
I'm more comfortable with the broken pot. I can catch myself. I'm satisfied that 'thrown' rhymes with 'unknown'. My personal kintsugi might be more in the breath between the words. My body, into my 60s, is more clay than air, not yet dry. I would like to die juicy before I turn to dust. But I should drink more water. Or eat the snowman.
Feel free to burn my eyes, if all that's left is hard and dark.
Thrown and Snowman poems © Roger Bygott
This is so beautiful. Thank you for sharing glimpses of your young life and world 🙏