Accomodation

Owd Mick Foy
They called him – my granddad
Medium build
Moustache
Played the fiddle
Watch-chain from a waistcoat
Gentle natured
Worked into his seventies in the middle

Came to England
With his father working
Summer times
Out on Cheshire farms
Sleeping accommodation
Was in a hay barn
Pat and Michael
Made a solid team

His father getting on a bit
For this game
Granddad said, ‘Go home
Leave this to me’
And moving up to Lancashire
And mining
Granddad met a colleen
Now you see

Settled now in Tyldesley
Children round them
Granddad never forgot
His early days
When young Irish lads
Arrived in Tyldesley
He’d bring them home
To sleep to Nan’s amaze

Where am I going to put these lads?
She wondered
– They’ll be all right here
For a day or two
His own beginning
A time that he remembered
Meant helping others
Was the thing to do

Brian Fahy
5 June 2021