of a slow retreating sea
when I crawled to shore and I stood upright
and the light poured down on me
and my work began in the bones and flint
of the tools I made my own
and mine is the song of time itself
and mine is the song of stone.
My limbs were forged in the blazing sun
and my eyes were lit by fire
and my voice rang out in the razor wind
and that wind became my choir.
My fingers turned to rivers and roads
and my choir became a mass
and mine is the song of iron and bronze
and mine is the song of glass.
My head dreamt a word for a place of work
and my lips formed ‘factory’
and my blood was the oil of a thousand cogs
that turned the machinery
and my voice is heard in the whispered words
of the microchip and plough
and mine is the song of days long gone
and mine is the song of now.
My pulse is the locomotive chant
of a heart that beats in Crewe.
My skin is a skein of cotton and silk
from a life that Macclesfield knew.
My speech is the salt on Winsford’s tongue
and my throat is a quarry of sand.
I’m the splintering sound of a Tudor beam
in the palm of Chester’s hand.
That sound remains in the Cheshire plains
as the light of evening dies
and it echoes in the dish of Jodrell Bank
and goes out to the Cheshire skies.
It flows through The Dee to Connah’s Quay
to the sea that I came from
and mine is the song of here and gone
and mine is the song to come.
John Lindley
Cheshire Rising was written by John when he was Cheshire Laureate: ‘It proved to be very popular, really resonating with the general populace and achieving that local connection’ he says. Born in Stockport in 1952, but now very much of Congleton, former Cheshire poet Laureate John Lindley failed the Eleven Plus and went to secondary modern. ‘I can’t say I achieved much, just two GCSEs but they were in English Language and English Literature,’ he admits.
‘I had a local, working-class father, and a mum who was more middle class and from Derbyshire. I remember it as a happy childhood. I was a very keen reader and began reading classics from a young age, as well as comic books. I was probably aged 12 or 13 when I started putting pen to paper and began writing poetry. I was encouraged at school and as well as poetry I liked essay writing. There was a big picture on the wall of a Viking invasion and a prize was offered for the best essay about it, which I won; it was my earliest success.’
Congleton had been home since 1996. He lives with his partner, Jane Harland, a piano teacher who also writes poetry. ‘It was through that shared passion that we met, says John.
At the launch of the Cheshire Poet Laureate in 2004. His route to a life of writing and his role as Cheshire Poet Laureate in 2004 came via a string of working roles: ‘I’ve had all kinds of jobs, postman, working in a music store, labourer, and finally, a global manager for the international sewing thread manufacturer, Coats Ltd. I took voluntary redundancy to work as a full-time, freelance poet.
‘You never know how taking up writing will go, so I put in a couple of safety nets, namely doing a couple of teaching certificates, which was quite fraught as I still had the day job at the time. Having taken the plunge and given up the day job at 50 and turned to freelancing, I’m busy these days in the poetry performance and workshop scene.’
That keeping busy has included recently: being the guest speaker and running workshops for the 2024 Sandstone Ridge Festival; helping pupils at Shavington Primary School in Crewe to write poems for a D-Day 80 Beacon Lighting event; hosting monthly open mic Poems & Pints events in Congleton; touring his show Dead Men Tell Tales throughout Cheshire libraries culminating with a performance as part of the 2024 Nether Edge Festival in Sheffield; and recording his third John Lindley & Friends album, Crossfire. The album of original material has just been released next month and, as with all of John’s work in music, profits go to charity.
John Lindley and the Poachers perform John’s songs. I don’t really work in anything other than poetry, songwriting now, and performing my songs in a band called John Lindley and the Poachers. Freelancing is not the most lucrative of lives but I love it. I love the variety of working with an eight-year-old one minute and then an 80-year-old the next.’
John describes his poetry as ‘left field and quite difficult to pin down’. He says: ‘I suppose if I’m honest I’m more of an urban poet than a rural one, a bit anti-establishment, so I felt reluctant to apply for the role of Cheshire Poet Laureate in 2004. I didn’t really want to be trotting out doggerel or ‘greeting card poems’ but that wasn’t the requirement, as it turned out; it was really about promoting Cheshire and poetry and involved lots of different things other than the writing of commissioned poems.
‘Cheshire Rising, which I wrote as Poet Laureate, proved to be very popular, really resonating with the general populace and achieving that local connection. People have told me it’s their favourite poem of mine and it’s even been set to music twice.’
Awards include the Words of Silk Open Poetry Competition, Manchester Cathedral’s International Religious Poetry event, three-time winner at the Lancaster Literature Festival, and the Manchester Open Poetry and Blithe Spirit opens.
John Lindley, touring poet. John had two booklets of poems published in 1976 and 1982 with his first full-length collection, Stills from November Campaigns (1998) being followed by Scarecrow Crimes (2002). Cheshire Rising was published by Cheshire County Council in 2005. Seven further collections have appeared, including the prize-winning, Love & Crossbones (2018). He holds poetry workshops as well as performing at pubs, clubs, theatres and festivals; has run distance learning workshops for writers in Africa as part of the British Council’s Crossing Borders project; travelled to Kenya to run workshops; and gives readings in care homes, including working with dementia patients.
His latest work, Inside, published last year was co-authored with author, playwright and workshop facilitator, Joy Winkler, from Macclesfield, another former Cheshire Poet Laureate ( the role no longer exists).
The two met at HMP Styal, when Joy was the writer-in-residence for eight years. John was employed as a part-time basic skills tutor in the prison’s education department and ran a series of evening poetry workshops for a group of inmates and weekly creative writing sessions for the Waite wing, housing prisoners in need of greater supervision. Inside stems from their experiences of working at the women’s prison.
Among their many independent projects, Joy and John perform together as part of two touring poetry shows: Bunch of Fives and Fourpenny Circus.
‘Joy has taught me that it was ok to like your own poems without it sounding too big-headed, and I’ve taken that on board,’ he says.
‘If I could pass on one poetry tip it might be that it’s a good move to write about what you don’t know sometimes. It’s also important to me to embrace diversity. I’m a lover of odd-ball, strange people, and I get a lot of pleasure out of writing about them.’
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