OLD EDWARD from SWEET SOLACE by Huw Parsons and Friends

OLD EDWARD: Words and Voice – Huw.
In the corner of Hereford Cathedral Close there's a fabulous bronze sculpture of Edward Elgar and his beloved 'Sunbeam' bicycle. Some years ago the cathedral used a photograph of this statue in the snow as a Christmas card, and this was the starting point for the poem. At the time I wrote it I'd been listening to Sting's song 'Don't Stand So Close To Me' and somehow it seemed fitting to use the same structure of the song for my poem. If you count the syllables in the lines of both pieces you'll see what I mean.

Huw Parsons was born in 1954, grew up in Llyswen, near Hay on Wye, and educated at Brecon Boys’ Grammar School and Chelsea College of Art.

He feels neither wholly English nor particularly Welsh, with his life’s diversity a social impostor and a cultural chameleon.

His influences: the poems of John Betjeman & Phillip Larkin, the novels of Leslie Thomas, the song lyrics of Sting & Jake Thackray.

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