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Glass Mountain Writers - Carol Cooper
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Carol Cooper started writing in 1997 after hearing the poetry slot on Radio Sheffield. This encouraged her to take English Language and Literature GCSE exams in her fifties, and to join the Glass Mountain Writers Group six years ago. She has been coming ever since.
Recently, Carol's work has progressed to include writing short plays, stories and songs. Last year she won a competition on Radio Sheffield with her five-minute play. She also helped launch the Beighton Heritage website by writing a song about Lucretia, the gypsy queen, and performing it at St. Mary's church where Lucretia is buried.
Carol has taken part in a number of local festivals, including a song-writing workshop at Treeton Festival with Ray Hearne, local poet and singer. This was filmed for Ian Clayton's television programme 'My Yorkshire' and Carol appeared in this singing the song she had written.
Her other main interest is researching her family history. She now carries out searches for other people and teaches a basic family history class at a local community college.
Honey jar
In a clear glass enclosure;
Honey comb suspended,
held in liquid amber
waits for the spoons dip
The slow drip drip
From spoon to lip
As it trips on the tongue
Then smoothly slips down
pervading the mouth with delicate flavour
Savour the subtle, sage scented aroma
From mountains of Greece
Suffolk grown lavender,
Sweet meadow clover
Grey lady
She drifts, she sighs,
As she passes by
Lady in grey
A trace of Lavender wafts the air
No one there
Only a shade
A shadow on a wall
As she passes by
Down the hallway
Lady in grey
Some say she seeks her child
An illicit love affair gone wrong
Some say she seeks her love
A love she lost long, long ago
She sighs, she drifts
From room to room
Exuding her perfume
Of Lavender
Lady in Grey
Always seeking
Never finding
Fading in and out of memory
From another room in another time
The fey Grey Lady from yesterday
Heat haze
Noon’s approach, heralds a rising cacophony
of cicada symphony.
Aged, gnarled, the olive grove breathes new life
with ear splitting intensity
Subtle aroma’s, of garlic, oregano,
pleasantly assault the senses,
tantalisingly drifting from open doors,
through the village, down the hillside
Cool alleyways, spidering out from sun baked squares;
are solitary in the mid-day heat.
Local siesta time
Exploration time for mad dogs and Englishmen
until heat and thirst prevail and
we turn native
Shock verdict in pensioner shoplifting trial
by Carol R Cooper (roving reporter)
Chaos reigned today during the trial of a pensioner who was accused of shoplifting and affray in a local store. She pleaded not guilty and her defence stated that as she did not leave the store with any goods on her person, she could not be accused of stealing.
She had simply eaten twelve plates of sample foods that had been displayed around the store for customers to try, prior to buying, and she had intended paying for the bottle of brandy secreted on her person when she eventually reached the checkout.
The representative from the store stated that it was not customary for one person to wolf down the lot in one go. They were there for consumption by the general public and not for the individual shopper who had left home without eating breakfast.
When challenged by the store manager, she had parked her bum on the floor, refusing to move until she received a full apology and another plate of sausages. When a policeman was called, she knocked off his helmet – accidentally.
The trial lasted a matter of minutes when the judge threw the case out of court, deeming it ridiculous.
The accused, dressed in lurid purple, with an accompanying cherry red hat and a pair of men’s carpet slippers, sneered at the store manager as she left the dock and spat in his eye, whereupon the judge accused her of contempt of court and sent her down to the cells, to cool off overnight.
The policeman on night duty breathed a sigh of relief when she left the next morning. His usual nap had been disturbed constantly throughout the night by the personal alarm that the lady had hidden on her person and consistently set off at half hourly intervals, crying rape, whenever the officer tried to take it from her.
An hour after her release, she was still sitting on the pavement outside the police station, insisting that she would not move until they took her home in one of their police cars. She was arrested for disturbing the peace and being a public nuisance. Her case comes up next Friday.
(Based on the poem WARNING by Jenny Joseph)
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