Literary Norfolk Header and Logo
 

George Harvey Bone

by Andrew McDonnell
 

That summer I spent sleepwalking
through mirror worlds of Norfolk seaside towns
in perpetual gloom, like a filter over a camera lens:
                        in Old Hunstanton
on the cliffs, I sat in the shelter
on the manicured green.

Next to me sat Mr George Harvey-Bone
who had slipped out, he said, from evensong
                 “Where the choir sang like planes
going out across the channel
          and the stain glass showed ruins
          of Coventry cathedral.”  

Funny, I thought
as Harvey-Bone went in ‘39
and has slipped from the pages
            of that book.  

‘I’m looking for Mr Hamilton”
he said, “I want to know why I’m ill
           I heard he’s shooting up in Sheringham
but the dead aren’t allowed on the bus…
           …so I can’t leave old Sunny Hunny.”

             He turned his head towards me
      
  like a shutter coming down on a shop.
Staring out across
        the phosphorescencing Wash
I found myself saying
        that if I bumped into Mr Hamilton
I’d be sure to let him know.

(This poem appears by kind permission of the author.)
 

 
Norfolk Poems
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

Supported by Norfolk County Council logoSupported by Norfolk Tourism

 
 

Home | About Us | Advertise on Literary Norfolk

©Cameron Self 2007-2014                                                                                                                Hosted by UK Web.Solutions Direct