My lady friend and I set out for a walk in the beautiful Trough Of Bowland,
that hidden area popularised in verse by Stan Siddlesox, the bard of Accrington,
whose childhood was spent in dreams of those distant peaks,
as told in his biography, From Cobbles to Stardom,
and whose father, like mine, is said to have exclaimed,

‘Oh, dear wife, I love him dearly, but by ’eck, we’ve reared an an eccentric son!’

‘I bet Stan’s creativity wasn’t stultified by those blasted pills,’ I mused,
‘the ones herself makes me take - what are they called, metraline, sertraline?’
I thought of him as we neared those hills (which in previous centuries,
as he’d eulogised in his book, Ode To Forgotten Lancashire Oaks,
had boasted a huge forest, until it was felled to build
the ships that defeated Spain’s armada) as we set off to walk up Totridge Fell,
a hill I’d run up as a Blackburn, Gateshead or Liverpool Harrier, I can’t remember which.

Anyway, like Tiger Woods, I had many clubs - athletic, that is.
Oh, those days were great fun, covered in mud, chasing
the leaders but never quite making the standard I felt I ought to. Ah well, it was good for my mental health,
and running is all the rage now.

Now I just walk in the park and watch the unfit struggle round
in that modern equivalent of the gym, the park run, and shout, ‘I was better than you!’

‘But nobody listens’, I thought, reflecting on those former athletic days as,
fortified with porridge as per my diet - apparently it’s good for
the serotonin levels in my brain, and the bowels (or is that All Bran?) -

I huffed and puffed up the hill, regretting the cake we’d enjoyed
in the Barlick-Upon-The Vale village hall, produced courtesy of Mrs Darcy-Dovecot.

‘That lady,’ I said to my gorgeous friend, ‘looks like the
character from Charles Dickens’ Dombey And Son, Mrs Bakealot.’

She looked puzzled, ‘I don’t remember her in that book.’

‘Oh, I must be mistook.’

She looked at me quizzically, ‘You’re talking in rhyme.’

‘Actually, we both are. Those pills you give me usually subdue it.’

But she pointed out, ‘It was your doctor who recommended Sertraline.’
Well, the day went on in glorious colours and I encouraged her to sing.

She obliged with Celtic classics Molly Malone and Bogey’s Bonnie’s Belle.
I applauded, then asked her if she was Irish.

But she laughed, and dazzled my world with a huge smile.
‘With my Jamaican accent? When I go in O’Halloran’s bar I stand out like a sore thumb.’

‘I’m sure they love you, just like wot I do.’

‘Now don’t be fresh, I’m on duty and expected to be professional.’

At the summit I looked to the east where the clouds massed over Weets Hill,
another distant prominence that I’d once ascended in string vest and shorts,
which, to my mind, looked so menacing, like a towering giant cat,
while its attendant cumuli resembled a cowering mouse.

I described my vision to herself, who laughed,

‘You should paint your visions, they are so eclectic.’

‘Alas,’ I replied bitterly, ‘I have no artistic skill, but was - to quote the British Poetic Institute,

‘‘A writer who tries to distil his life through dubious imagery,
which he has the effrontery to claim to be poetic.’”

Herself commented, ‘Well, you had lots of followers on the poetry/live gig circuit,
but somehow your nerves got the better of you.’

‘Ah, the nerves, I could give you chapters and verses about them,
all ending with n - rumination, obsession, depression, and finally compulsion,

but I don’t feel compelled to, so I can strike the last one of the list.’

 

Then she gave me a kiss (just on the cheek, alas),

but I returned to the hospital enlivened by our day out,
and particularly her sexy smile as she let me unlace her boots,
but alas I descended into the blues, made worse ’cos I’d run out of decent books.

So I went in the TV room - only to last five minutes, for the others,
a lot of bores, were watching football, with cliche-ridden commentary,
talking about ‘Little triangles and a three-two-one formation’, or something like that.
I started ruminating, which in mental health jargon, means ‘obsessive and intrusive thoughts’.

Well, BBC pundit Larry Linebreaker’s banal remarks,
such as ‘Wow, that was a good shot!’ were really intruding
upon me - besides, I ruminated, ‘I could have scored that’.
So to break the cycle, I consulted Fred, a reformed alcoholic,

‘Do you have to understand maths to watch this?’

His reply was succinct. ‘No, just pissed.’

Then my mind slipped into reverse, as is its habit.
I remembered a know-it-all, who, when I was shy and gauche, had advised,
‘You should cultivate popular things, to fit in, such as pop music and football.’ 

But I couldn’t; you see I’ve always been odd.

I grew up reading Sherlock Holmes’ creator Arthur Conan Doyle,
who attended a public school, coincidentally not far from Totridge fell,
and Rider Haggard, whose hero killed more African elephants than Hannibal,
but his readers never took him to task,
for the slaughter of so many beasts in pursuit of the elephant tusk.

I mused on this hypocrisy, then drifted into a dream I’d had as a kid,
where, as a big game hunter, just like Haggard’s creation Alan Quatermain,
I fought off the rampaging Zulu, before retiring to my cottage at Capetown.

Now I escape into a world of boys-own stories in my room at Wetherbeaten Hall,
an exclusive (a misnomer if ever there was one) psychiatric institute,
and dream up stories peopled by my fictional heroes.

‘But dash it Holmes!’ Doctor Watson said, ‘I can’t remember what I wrote.
What was that one about the monster animal called? The Cat Of The Whiskervilles?’

‘Very funny!’

‘Thanks!’ Watson replied, ‘I should have been a writer.’

‘You were.’ A voice interceded. ‘Have you been taking your pills?’

The next morning my therapist reassured me, ‘A problem aired is one shared.’
‘Ah but,’ I replied, ‘as some woman once claimed, I don’t live in the real world.’

‘Who told you that?’ He asked.

‘Probably the wife, when she put me in here.’

Then a door opened and a Jamaican voice voice said, ‘No, it was me.’

‘Do you mind!’ The aggrieved medical chap shouted, then looked at her closely. ‘Didn’t you retire, nurse Dreadlock?’

‘Yes, and now I’m dispensing love, doctor Medilock, instead of his daily pill.
Just like the day I took him up the beautiful Totridge fell.’

Then she held my hand. ‘I’m not a nurse any more, so will you marry me?
Now that I don’t have to be professional?’