Little
Charlie Haigh
Running up
the cobbles
And rushing
into school
Just before
the bell.
Chalk
squeaking on slate
As he
copies out his alphabet,
Hand
shaking in fear
As the
teacher’s steps come closer.
Chanting
his times tables
And longing
for the day to end,
When he can
run down those cobbles
Towards
freedom in the woods.
I wish I
could tell him
That 130
years from now
Children in
this classroom
Would be
learning about him.
I’m glad he
didn’t know then
About the
horrors of the trenches
And the
sacrifice that he would make
With
seventy others from his school.
He could never
have guessed
That his
name would be listed
On a
gleaming gold plaque
In the
school’s entrance hall
And that a
class would be learning
About his life in Dewsbury
Before that
piece of shrapnel
Delivered
its fatal wound.
He could
never have predicted
That his
name would be honoured
And his
life would be remembered
Two
centuries into the future.
But part of
me wants to believe
That he is somewhere
watching down,
Glad that
we appreciate
The
sacrifice that he made
And that
somewhere he is still
Little
Charlie Haigh,
Running
down those cobbles
Towards
freedom in the woods.
I am currently working as a freelance teacher (creative writing) in primary schools on behalf of Dewsbury Sacrifices. They are a
voluntary group who are working on a Heritage Lottery funded project to commemorate
those local men who paid the supreme sacrifice during World War One. As well as raising awareness of
the scale of loss experienced in the Dewsbury area, they are in the process of
documenting the lives of all the 1053 servicemen who are named on the war
memorial at Crow Nest Park
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