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Swansea u3a member shares the experiences that shaped his poetry

02 January 2025

Barry is a member of the Swansea u3a poetry group, and credits the group with reigniting his lifelong love of poetry. Throughout his life, many people, places and experiences inspired him in different ways, and he has now published a poetry anthology that reflects on his life. Here, he discusses how events in his life shaped his relationship with poetry.

photos of a rock and a waterfall in the vale of neath in south wales

Pictured: photos taken by Barry of some of the places that inspired him - a natural rock seat in Henllan and Melincourt Waterfall.

Among my several early enrolments in the Swansea u3a was the poetry group, then run by the very knowledgable Brenda. Under her, I gained much - the mutual shared pursuit of poetry, and admiration of the highly imaginative views of its other members.

Throughout my life, though, I have maintained a love of art, sport and poetry. The poetry acquired, I think, from my mother. She was a lover of Elizabethan era literature and I remember her reciting poems and rhymes in both Welsh and English. The one solitary poem surviving from my youth is 'The Tide of Time', written at nineteen years old. Decades later, I discovered that the house I lived in at the time was once home to my great uncle Edward Bowen, a local poet. Edward's father, Walter Bowen, was also a noted poet - both wrote only in Welsh.

My youth was packed with work, sport, art, Resolven Youth Centre and engineering studies - not normally pursuits compatible with poetry. So poetry was kept separate and secret.

I was born in London in 1937 and arrived in Wales for the Act of National Registration in 1939. My father was employed at the RAF camp at Stormy Down. But some of my earlier days were lived in the Vale of Neath in South Wales.

In 1941, my father took me on a visit to Swansea, where we were caught up in the Swansea Three-Day Blitz. Days later, he enlisted into the RAF and was soon posted to Operation Torch in Algiers. My mother, now with four young children, was left to travel 300 miles north to Bridlington, Yorkshire, a place where many considered us 'enemy aliens' because of our surnames. My father returned home in 1946 suffering from a then incurable brain cancer, oligodendroglioma. We four children ended up in children's homes for much of our childhood. It was a childhood subjected to many occasions of violence.

One of those 'homes' was a Roman Catholic orphanage and school where the boys had to perform all the cleaning, maintenance and cooking. Education was subordinate to the Catechism and I remember one particularly brutal and sadistic male teacher. Whilst there, I hoped to go to Hull College of Art, but was denied. They decided to put me to work as a live-in farm labourer in Lincolnshire. There I experienced fifteen months of insult and abuse before I ran away, back to the Vale of Neath.

Back in Wales I was offered an engineering apprenticeship, which later enabled me to advance into engineering management roles. When I arrived in the Vale of Neath, the range of cultural activities astonished me, and whilst living there I met many people who helped foster my knowledge and interest in literature,  music and history. It was the beginning of an entirely different chapter in my life and, as a result, features in much of my poetry. The people, scenery, and waterfalls of the Vale influenced me deeply. 

A favourite haunt was the ruined farmhouse in Henllan where, from a particular rock, I could view the valley and contemplate how fortunate my life had become. The people and place provided much inspiration as I eased my way into the most satisfying period of my life. 

After retiring, I joined the u3a in Swansea, where I now live. It was Brenda's knowledge and enthusiasm for poetry that helped resurrect my own. I also owe a great deal to my current and respected tutor Carole, who encouraged me to publish. Hesitantly I share my poetry, but only with like-minded people. 

 

You can read Barry's anthology, Inexplicable Fragments, here. If you would like to share how your u3a has inspired you, please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

To join your local u3a, visit the u3a website

 



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