Grandma's Eyes - From 'Laughter Like a Shield' 1993
Words & Music: Pat
Drummond (3.55)
For Philomena Drummond Nee Chaumont 1916-1990
Poet, storyteller, wife, mother, mentor and guide.
Dateline... Croydon, NSW
- My mother and father were
always great storytellers. Country people, exiled to the city
by history and circumstance, they bequeathed to their children,
through the tales they told, a sense of pride and place. A cup
of tea, a yarn, and a political debate around our dining room
table could, and did, last for hours. Against the backdrop of
Basin Mountain, Forbes Lagoon and The Bonewood Scrub, a bizarre
cast of characters, with names like 'Wormy Wright','The Carbine
Heifer',and 'Old Tarnation'; creatures far too fantastic for
mere invention; lived out lives of hardship and high adventure.
They were, to my brothers and I, stories of a foreign world;
a place inhabited by aunts and uncles we had never met, and by
dangerous creatures and fabulous sights that we had never seen.
But they were also, for city kids, a tenuous link to 'The Bush';
that fantastic place of myth and legend; of snakes, crocodiles,
horsemen, shearers and beer; which existed somewhere west of
Strathfield, in the uncharted lands of a suburban childs' imagination.
She's so old now she
creaks when she walks;
and her voice is kind
of crackly now when she talks.
But she's got more stories
than you've ever heard
and her grandchildren
hang onto every word.
Of ponies that bolted
and farms that went bad;
of people who shared
of what little they had;
of a different time
and a different world;
of things she got up
to as a slip of a girl.
Chorus: Grab a cup of
tea from that old tin pot.
She's going to feed
your friends whether they want it or not.
And her memory is like
a window in time; you can see to 1929.
How long has it been
since you've seen your world out of Grandma's eyes?
Tales of laughter and
stories of tears.
The one about the jollop
in the policeman's beer.
Running away to Surfers'
Paradise,
before the high rise
buildings blotted out the skies.
If you bring a girl
home, it's true without doubt,
all of her best china
cups will come out
and the afternoon will
drift away
in fabulous stories
and lamington cakes.
Chorus
Orchards in Orange and
farms up in Forbes;
the times in the bush
between the two World Wars.
There's a girl inside
with a wonderful smile,
jet black hair and acres
of style and
I can her see her waving
to me out of Grandma's eyes.
Chorus.
Chess
Set Homepage / The
Age Of Dissent / The Descent
Of Age / Back to Chess
Set Script / Reflection
-: The Poems of Philomena Chaumont