The scars left on my face by falling off my bicycle head first and skidding onto a tarmac carpark as it tore into my skin. (After 60 years I still have one scar beneath my right nostril and a piece of stone in my lower lip.)No, not gruesome memories like that one. Words often leave a more profound impact.
While I was recovering in hospital with concussion following the afore-mentioned accident, my dance partner (then a girl called Lynn Jones) came to visit with her parents. Without any sympathy for my situation, my scabby face and broken teeth, she pointed at me and declared "That's what you get for telling lies!"I was terribly upset by this and when I told my dad he reassured me that I need never see her again. He arranged for a visit to Blackpool Tower during the British Junior Dance Festival. There we met a friend of his, former Ballroom World Champion Eric Lashbrook. He took me twice around the floor and told my dad he would be in touch. A few weeks later he arranged a 'try out' for me with a boy partner and within months we were successfully admitted to the British Juvenile Team for a trip to compete in Switzerland. But for Lynn's dreadful words, none of my dancing success would ever have happened.In my teens, my elderly Auntie Effie (short for Ethel) took herself off on a solo trip to Paris, very brave for a woman of 70-plus. She had a career as head corsetter in a local department store and had married late in life. Her husband had recently died. She once told me that people place on you half the value you place on yourself. That left an imprint too. Never undervalue your own worth.My poem today is based on factual personal experience and the lasting imprint of the power of words. My motto is: Always think before you speak.
Imprint That was the day
the day I decided I’d had enough
the day I chose to leave
I put the children in the car
he took them out again
pushed them back into the house
I tried to get them back
he blocked me
he slammed the door on my arm
He grabbed me
he lifted me up
he threw me at the copper beech
The neighbor was concerned
he called the police
an officer drove me to hospital
He said “think about it overnight
a man’s reputation
is at stake”
The bruise shaped like the door lock
would fade in time
I would be fine
But those misogynistic words
will always remain
a permanent imprint in my mind
Adele V Robinson Email ThisBlogThis!Share to XShare to Facebook
