A Loughor Man
by Tris Kerslake
My father was a Loughor man, a placid, sometimes sulky man, who spent his time in Gower schools and spent his youth upon the field and spent his younger days to free the northern waves from floating mines. An irony.
My father was a Loughor man, a clever maths and english man, who left his schools to younger boys and left his fields for other games and left his greener home to be a sailor on a fighting ship. A remedy.
My father was a Loughor man, frustrated, educated man, who fled his father’s land-locked pit and fled his miner’s heritage and fled his nationality for wider lands. A refugee.
My father was a Loughor man, twice-crossed and bitter minded man, who broke his days for other backs and broke his back for better days and broke his heart to be back home again. A tragedy.
My father was a Loughor man, a missing mid-Glamorgan man, who drank his bitterness in pubs and drank his anger from a glass and drank his pain away. A Loughor man. A memory.