IL EST MORT

Il est mort
La femme est assise
Le visage pâle.
Elle est silencieuse
Elle est immobile
Dans le grand fauteuil
Le fauteuil de son mari.

Les enfants entrent
Ils savent
Ils pleurent
Ils courent à leur mère
Elle les caresse
Mais ses yeux secs ne voient rien.

Peu à peu les sanglots s'arrêtent
Les enfants dorment fatigués,
Mais encore, la femme est assise, immobile
Dans le grand fauteuil
La veuve avec ses enfants.

STEPHANIE CROCKER, III 16.

REFLECTIONS ON SUMMER

Slow, lazy hours with quiet lulls,
heady scents, whirring wasps and dragonflies.
Amber, creamy sunlight.
Cushions of soft green grass, spangled with dazzling flowers.
Billows of pale butterflies,
arches of leaves and deafening birdsong.
Heavy fragrant rainstorms,
Clear blue unblemished pools
shielding underwater mysteries,
a mirror to diluted sunshine.
Long days of picnics, rambles and photographs,
bare limbs, bitter apples and idle daydreams.
Soaking up the day to its last violet drop
And watching the twilight sunset sky,
streaked and flowing red,
floods of rosy light slipping beyond the horizon.

A. BADENOCH, IV 9.

THE BOMBED CITY

The earth writhed and groaned in bitter anguish,
Died, lay torn and tortured by tragic symphonies of silence.
Wounded clouds whimpered a jagged discord,
Wailed in shocked abandon
To see the charred and blackened stumps that once were men. . . .
Unthinking men of ice.

The weeping, phantom ashes of devastated earth
Mouthed soundless sighs, mute tears of bitter hate
Against such hurt
Inflicted with brutality by men. . . .
By men of ice.

Then as the sun grew black, all shadows ceased to be.
The darkness of eternity prevailed, whispered over dust and dry remains. . . .
A cruel contrast to the act before
When icy flames of hydrogen erupted, ploughed deep into the pounding heart of earth.

For one suspended moment of eternity
An intense inferno of such brilliant perfection
Cursed the world with mocking satire,
Laughed low with cold contempt and then with unsheathed power. . . .
Unleashed a shock of deadly radiation.
Titanic terror gripped the very souls of men.
Then paralysing death. . . .
Death to desolate men of ice.

JEAN WALLACE, JVI.

I walked along the winding path of the moor, and watched the dry heat of the afternoon become enveloped in dark grey clouds which foretell a storm. I was not surprised, I had been expecting it, but I hurried, for I was a mile from the farm and alone. I watched for the strong winds to rush by with pricking rain. A hundred yards further on, I heard the growl of thunder, quite close. It rumbled towards me and the earth trembled. I stood and gazed ahead, to see the piercing flash, and, as it streaked, the hills and dark clouds merged together. Then, as though the lightening had sliced the hill, it seemed to come tumbling towards me—like a boulder, but it brought no sound. I was afraid of my solitude in the dark, for I could not tell what the object was.

The nearer it came to me, the more silent the wind grew, and my ears strained to hear. I felt deaf and sounds sang in my brain. On it came, through the still air, and I knew it was no boulder. I backed away from the dark, round shape, unable to turn. Tripping in my retreat, I crouched close to the ground, wanting to run, but something made me stay. It was now so near that it was twenty feet high and as I stared at it, thousands of long pointed spines with fiercesome hooks, bristled out in all directions. It began to roll laboriously from side to side, the hooks catching the tough gorse and heather, and tearing up the turf. Then it began to heave as though it was breathing heavily.

Suddenly it split, ripping horizontally for about ten feet, leaving a gaping hole. Fleshy material shivered and rolled inside, glowing fluorescent. Sometimes it sucked back to form a cave and sometimes pushed together, oozing out of the opening. A few minutes later it began to ease itself inwards, shrinking a little in size and closing the cavity. The hooks dragged the loosened turf, but there was no tearing sound.

I heard the thunder again, deafening after the silence, but a relief; then a lightening flash whipped across the moor, blinding me momentarily, and I hid my face. When I looked again, the clouds were clearing and the creature had gone. I moved to where it had been, and all that remained were deep grooves in the torn turf, and a heap of glistening jelly which was just beginning to harden.

ANNABEL WILKINSON., V17

THE WALL

The wall falls into decay and no one cares
But it was not always so,
Once there were legions here, signs of Rome's fading glory,
They conquered all the Picts and Scots with stern relentlessness
And showed the Empire's splendour to all who dare rise against it.
But now the wind is the only sentry tramping with
Eternal vigilance along the crumbling wall.
Watching those shadowy, bleak hills for the slightest movement,
Guarding the northern-most frontier from attack.
Their ghosts live on if you listen—stop for a while,
You can hear the centurion's commands as he pulls
His scarlet cloak round him against the biting wind,
The bugler calling first watch, the coarse laughter
Of tired men in the huts, as they settle for the long cold night,
See the glint on the tribune's helmet as he passes in front of the lighted guardhouse,
Hear his muttered grievances against the company,
Feel his misery as he stumbles across the fort to relieve some tired soldier
Of his freezing task.
The clatter of cans and pots in the cookhouse,
And the yelping of a stray dog, scrounging the gutters for scraps,
See the legion's standard, proudly erect in the praetorium chapel—
But the engraving on it?
The Ninth Hispana—the fated legion.
Marching into those misty highlands never to return.
That is why you feel chills run up and down your spine
As you sit here—you glance across the deserted ruins,
Look to the shrouded hillsides, surely they will return,
What happened, did man or god overcome their last desperate march?

GILLIAN STEPHENSON, IV12.

I was tired and thankful for a rest. I sank slowly down into one of the chairs provided. I would wait here until the guide returned.

For a few minutes, I was just thankful for the chair, and the fact that I had no longer to support my body on two weary feet. Then I became aware of it: I listened carefully.

There was no longer even a whisper of noise in the gigantic cathedral. I was alone. Everything was still. Tense, I noted the complete, eerie silence. My eyes pierced fearfully the space around. No movement: no noise: there was only silence.

The vast hall overshadowed me. I was tiny, minute, and insignificant. The space was eternity: the quiet chilled me. Then, faintly, whispered in the distance, I heard what seemed like a gust of wind. Surprised, I discovered it to be my own escaping breath. I listened again, fascinated: in, out; in, out; louder and louder. It enhanced the silence. Never had it sounded so loud. I was afraid. My skin crawled. Never had I felt silence like this.

A gun-shot echoed into the hall. The sound pierced the space and soared to the roof. A resounding, acute noise. Outraged, the haunting ghost of silence fled. I stood up, and turned. It was not a gun-shot but the sound of a closing door.

Then I heard the noise of approaching footsteps. These too spiralled round the huge hall. Slowly they approached, now muffled by the sound of others. The echo grew, magnified and divided. As a tidal wave it emerged into the hall. It mingled with the sound of the guide's voice, and broke forth into reality.

I aroused myself, and went forward to join my chattering friends in the party.

PAT YOUNG, VI 7.

Nightfall. A chilly wind whistles through the empty streets and litter falls about their feet. No other sounds can be heard, but these and the echoing sound of their running feet.

They stop and there is almost complete silence. They are bored and they look around expectantly. Watching, hoping, waiting—but for what?

A sudden noise startles them and they spin round fearlessly, ready for a fight, but it is only a tin can blown by a gust of wind against a pile of bricks so they begin to kick it along with them as they walk, breaking the stillness of the night.

Suddenly, they stop. Before them they see a solitary figure looming out of the darkness. They cannot distinguish the age of the figure or the size, but suddenly they aren't bored any more and they don't care. Each reads in the other's eyes what his own is saying so clearly.

They begin to run. The old man hears them coming and guesses that there are about five of them. He begins to shake with fear as he quickly recalls all the similar attacks he has heard of on the radio and how they all too often result in a violent death. He does not even attempt to defend himself for the gang is upon him all too quickly. There are no screams, no pleas, just deadly thuds and scrapes and the flashing of blades. Then they are gone. Gone into the night. No longer bored. No longer without something "good" to tell their friends tomorrow night. Something to boast about.

Behind them lies a body in a pool of blood. The body of—a blind man. A man who was too old to defend himself and too afraid to shout. But before them lies a prison cell and a death sentence and justice.

BETTY KELLER, V22.

A FIRE

Flames springing up from every secluded comer,
Yellows, reds and oranges, flickering in the dark May night.
Creeping up the ivy which hangs like curtains down the wall.
All about the house the flames are spreading,
A yellow glow hovers around.
The flames are reaching for the trees,
And now the house has almost gone,
With a crash like thunder, the roof fell in.
The flames dance out, like hungry tongues,
Sparks fly up, like sunbeams, into the sky.
The woodwork crackles, and burns to a cinder,
On and on roars the great hot fire,
Scorching anxious people who are trying to deaden it,
With buckets of water thrown on here and there.
People cough and splutter as the fire sizzles and the smoke rises
Like a thick fog.

The fire is out, the building's suffered most,
Everything is hot, and burnt,
Nothing is left, but the ruins of the house.

REBECCA LISLE, I2.

DESTRUCTION

"Quick Mum, get a bucket,
Sally, go fetch Dad,
There's a fire in my bedroom,
And it's spreading like mad".

"How on earth did it start?
But never mind just now,
Ring the fire brigade and hurry,
And please don't make a row".

We all ran upstairs,
With a bucket in each hand,
And on the flames threw water,
And Dad hurled on the sand.

"My best curtains, charred and ragged",
Said Mum in great despair,
"The fire's out, but look, just look,
The room's black and burnt and bare".

JANE O'MALLEY GAUNT, I2.

The night was black and still hanging over a sleeping city. Lights flickered and went out, leaving a slumbering landscape basking in peaceful dreams. The calm was shattered suddenly when three grey shapes slunk across the serene sky and dropped their evil cargo on the sleeping streets.

A shattering explosion rent the air as buildings crumbled like eggshells, jagged cracks making walls look like crazy jig-saw puzzles. Flames began to dance gleefully among the ruins while people emerged from holes in the ground like insects.

Chaos was the monarch of the moment, her crown fixed firmly, she made her reign one of grief and disorder. The haggard buildings gazed mournfully over the dying city. Shattered glass covered the trembling ground like a thin layer of frost, leaving gaping chasms in the buildings remaining standing, doors hung on one hinge charred and smoking. As the sun rose, its golden rays only accentuated the cold, desolate expanse of debris which lay scattered over the quiet streets.

All that remained of the Town Hall which once had proudly offered its tower to the sky was a heap of charred and smouldering, blackened bricks. The great clock of which the city had been so proud, had been tossed aside like a cast off toy. Treasured possessions lay in pieces forgotten in the agonies of anxiety. People wandered homeless and destitute seeking some sort of shelter behind the lacerated buildings.

This was the scene as the moon came up, a city in despair striving to attain some new purpose from its life.

SUSAN ROWLEY, IV 12.

I never imagined that a few weeks after leaving school I would be half way up a fireman's ladder with a "body" on my back, smiling bravely into the lens of a camera. It might have been an easier life if I'd become a school teacher instead of a reporter.

I'd started work on a small weekly newspaper with no idea of what my work would involve, but right from the start, I knew it was the vocation for me.

The day at the fire station was intended for a feature for the paper near Christmas week when we were short of news copy. I'd signed a forbidding document which said I was to hold the fire brigade in no way responsible for any accident to my person, which did not give me a great deal of confidence, until I saw the men.

Six young, handsome firemen were to be my companions for the day and if my life was to be in their hands, then that was all I could wish for,

Besides tearing round the town in the fire engine, buried in a fireman's jacket, four sizes too big and a helmet which interfered with my sight, I was expected to slide down the pole, climb up the practice towers and have my photograph taken up an extending ladder with "Charles", the fireman's dummy, on my back.

A visit to the fire station, luncheons at the Queens Hotel in Leeds, court reporting and a ride on a combine harvester are just a few of the things that make up a working day.

But one thing I have found to be very true is the old Yorkshire saying, "There's nowt so queer as folk".

Obituaries are the plague of the local newspaper reporter and the job of having to interview the bereaved ones is not always pleasant.

"It was about this time last week", one old dear said to me with a distant look on her face, "And he was sitting in the chair that you're sitting in now, when all of a sudden. . . .".

In choosing the day for the obituary, one has to be careful, because the coffin is usually lying in state in the house on the day of the funeral. Interviewing the son of the deceased in a small and dismal terraced house, with curtains drawn and the object of the obituary lying gruesomely in her coffin, is not exactly helpful to the nerves. And especially when the son was so obviously enjoying my plight. I was relieved when a neighbour came in to see "her" before the cortege arrived. After bending over the coffin and gazing at the face of the departed one, the neighbour turned and said: "Kept well, hasn't she?"

JANET HARRIS.

LE DEPART

Le train partira dans dix minutes
Et il partira à jamais
Il m'a dit
Je t'aime. Je t'aime
Mais je dois partir
Je dois me battre
Il m'a regardée
Il n'a rien dit.
Il a pris ma main
On était comme ça longtemps.
Il est monté dans le train
Il a fait signe
Et puis il est parti.

Hier nous avons ri
Mais aujourd'hui
Je pleure
Parce qu'il est parti.

KATHERINE WORSNOP, III 10.

Recently there has been a great deal of controversy on the subject of comprehensive schools. This affects the people of Leeds directly as the Leeds Education Committee intends to introduce this system of education in 1967. In spite of the many arguments against comprehensive schools we believe that this is the only system that will allow everyone to have an opportunity to discover his capabilities and develop them fully.

First, a comprehensive system would mean the abolition of the eleven-plus which has already been proved to be an inadequate and unfair test of ability. Apart from the fact that children's intellectual ability develops at an uneven rate, the eleven-plus is not designed to test the children's potentialities. A comprehensive school system would mean that, at the age of eleven, a child would simply be transferred from his junior school to a senior school. There he would be offered a wide choice of subjects which perhaps in a secondary modern school would not be available. We are not pretending that all children at the same age have the same ability. On the contrary, a comprehensive school would allow for the fact that no child has equal intellectual capacity for every subject.

The child could develop at his own rate without losing the opportunity of a good career. Under the present system the late developer has either to work extremely hard to pass "0" levels or sacrifice his chance of further education. Even if a child is placed in a lower stream on entrance to a comprehensive school, providing he shows promise, he can easily change into a higher stream without having the distress of changing schools and leaving behind his old friends. And so he could be in a top division for one subject and a lower one for another and would not have the feeling that he had been delegated to a second-rate school for eleven-plus failures because he would be mixing with children who were academically more able.

A comprehensive school system would not mean the lowering of high grammar school standards. A comprehensive school is really just an amalgamation of a secondary modern school and a grammar school so that no one's education will suffer, but that many children will have the opportunity to go to university or some other place of higher education. Surely in an age when a great deal of emphasis is placed on the ability to pass public exams and when more and more jobs require G.C.E. passes, no child should be denied the opportunity to develop his talents and capabilities to the full.

SALLY ONON, PAT WICKS, JVI.

JEWS

Chased from Egypt.
Defeated by the Romans.
Herded into ghettos.
Transported from Germany.
Received by Western Powers.
Hated by businessmen
Outcasts.
But now the exile ceases,
Now, they return to Palestine
For Peace.

JULIE SHEPPARD, III 14.

The bomb may be dropped within the day,
Still you think you'll be safe, come what may,
When the world's in ruins you'll hear me say,
Why didn't you understand?

And after the bomb, what then, you cry,
I call you cowards, you wouldn't die
For peace and love, you wouldn't try,
Why can't you understand?

Why can't you hear the screams of the injured,
The sick, the homeless, the weak and the tortured,
They seek your help, you, the cultured,
Why can't you understand?

Let God be God, and believe he's right,
Let hate and evil fade from sight,
Soon you'll be glad you've seen the light,
I hope you'll understand.

When war is gone, and Freedom Bells ring,
And birds fly swiftly on the wing,
Come on, and let me hear you sing—
“Yes, now we understand!"

MARGARET JACKSON, II5.

If the government and education authority are so determined to inaugurate comprehensive education, why can they not wait, until sufficient new schools, built expressly for this purpose, and acknowledged to be successful, are ready? Instead we are to have a hotchpotch of school buildings, strewn here and there, bunched together as one so-called comprehensive school. In this way we are losing excellent grammar schools, with outstanding academic records and good secondary modern schools, with dedicated staff producing more sixth form candidates each year. Lastly, all element of school tradition, dear to many of us, will be lost forever.

FELICITY J. HILDRED, V 23.

Italy is one of those countries you either take to passionately or loathe violently after your first visit. Having done the former, I find it a great pleasure to relate my fortunate experience to others. In the days when Ancient Rome, the capital of Italy, was at its prime, roads, bridges, monuments, and temples were built to last for centuries. Today they are built to last for twenty years at the most. Right in the centre of Rome, in 1966 there is a magnificent example of this. One of the bridges Mussolini built during the Second World War, has collapsed under the weight of modern-day traffic, and there is a large sign-post directing you to use Hadrian's bridge not far away. This bridge, although built to withstand the stamping of the Roman legions, the rattling wheels of the chariots and the pounding of cavalry, has withstood, with apparently no ill effects, the roaring traffic of Roma '66.

The Italians, on the whole, are in my opinion the most agreeable, hospitable and happy-go-lucky race of people on earth. On the other hand, they have a deft aptitude for displaying, sheer bad temper, awkwardness, when they feel so inclined, and an amazing lack of comprehension where the English language is concerned. Supposing your hotel was two streets further away than the taxi rank, an Italian driver could display his lack of knowledge of English so convincingly, that you would feel a "perfect brute" for ever demanding him to drop you off at the door in the first place. However, once this has happened two or three times, the traveller becomes "ignorance-hardened" and in his few words of fluent Italian, he nonchalantly instructs the driver where to stop.

Of course, Italy, in particular Rome, has a wonderful selection of temples, statues, fountains, churches, cathedrals and the like. Most people whether they have visited Rome or not, have heard of such world-famous places, as the Vatican City, St. Peter's, the Colosseum, and the Roman Forum, these are in reality more beautiful and breath-taking than any author, no matter how expressive, could portray. The Vatican is a miracle in itself, the booklet describes it, tells how many men died whilst erecting it, the numbers were unbelievable. The Colosseum where so many Christians were tortured still echoes with their screams, and walls tell of many tragedies unseen by the public of those days. The whole place is preserved, because after Christianity was introduced into Rome, Benedict XIV, raising a cross in the centre of the ground, consecrated the remains of this magnificent amphitheatre. It was begun in A.D. 72, by Vespasian and finished by his son Titus in A.D. 80. Hebrew prisoners were employed in its construction, and its real name is the Flavian Amphitheatre. Its present name was adopted probably because the Colossus of Nero was in the vicinity.

After the sacking of the Normans in 1084, nothing but a skeleton remained of antique classic Rome, and the Colosseum was used as a quarry for building materials for many years.

In this arena, death usually played a dominant role, wild beasts increased the sanguine-quality of the entertainment, while brave gladiators fought everything and anything to the death. Dion Cassius says that nine thousand wild animals were killed during the hundred days of festivities to celebrate the dedication of this building.

In another part of the city the name Roman Forum designates the group of monuments whose ruins are between the Capitol, the Imperial Forums, the Colosseum and the Palatine. The Forum like the Eternal City itself reeks with history, its ruins would tell many tales of all the tempests of the human spirit, when feelings ran high, and passions were aroused, the Forum was an outlet, where speakers could speak, and demonstrators could demonstrate, and everyone could air his views in public, did he so desire.

The Eternal City is a place where you could stay for hundreds of years, and still not see all there is to see. In the city, there is a large fountain, called the Trevi fountain, and it is a tale of long standing, that should you throw three coins in it, you will return. I have done so, and now my one ambition is to return, just to prove the legend true, you understand. A friend of mine went to Rome in 1960 when she was ten years old, the city and its atmosphere enchanted her, and she threw three pennies into the fountain, she returned in 1963, again she went to the Trevi fountain, and again she returned in 1965, and, now being able to speak Italian fluently, she hopes to go to University there and eventually to settle there for good.

KATHRYN ROSEMOND, JVI.

AN OBSERVER

Heads of shining hair, bent low
Over jeering problems;
Suddenly whispers and titters
From a small group intimately and warmly close.

A commanding voice rings their ears,
Large eyes, blue and brown meet yours
Penetrate a shallow mind and smile
Knowingly.

Time to draw, to create a secret land
That belongs to you, only
Shaded by imagination, coated by coloured wax
Onto roughened paper, clean and new.

Now the young innocents break to noise—
History—loves unknown, beauty seen and dead,
Notes from the old piano linger
And fade like the songs themselves, dying a slow Death.

Lastly white on black, words to store on the shelves of your mind,
Many fall off into a black void
Recovered years hence
When all this forms memories,
Vividly refreshing a tired mind.

Suddenly a bell rings, a controlled scramble
Into the waiting rain, that holds
Infantile exhilaration and 'flu.

And now I am left in a cold darkening room
Where once there was sunshine.

CHRISTINE BLACKBURN, JVI.