Rummage Bag Raf Poem by Tony Jolley

Form the bottom of the rummage bag,
Buried under assorted pendants and brooches,
Their chains all muxed up like a bird’s nest on a fishing reel
(and I’ve had a few of them in my time!) ,
A fresh-faced, freckled smile
Beamed up at me
Perhaps as surprised to be found as I was to find it.

It was a smile now almost certainly long lost,
A headshot of less than a thumbnail,
The size of a sixpence,
Set in a silver round
And pasted, dead centre, to an inch-square of Mother-of-Pearl
Hanging from a small chain
Attached to a safetypin-type clip:
The sort of affair a wartime Ward Angel
Might have worn
Fastened to her breast
To suspend her upside-down watch:

Watch. One.
Blood Pressure timing for the taking of.

The pearl plaque, chained at one corner,
Would hang diamond-like
Rather than square on.
The maker had set the photo in the same orientation,
And, with a suitably dry sense of humour
And not a little eye for the aesthetically pleasing,
Had aligned it to the diamond points and chain
By an arrow-straight vertical
Running along the razor sharp ridgeline
Of the young RAF officer’s cap,
Perched, as it was,
Almost more off his head than on it,
Courtesy, perhaps,
Of the gravity-defying properties of Brylcreem
(A not altogether inappropriate a talisman
For one of The Few) .

So young.
So very, very young.
A boy,
Barely a man
But for his being on intimate terms
With burning lead and fuel-flame,
And being frightened of counting his friends
For fear he’d have far too many fingers.
He measured his minutes as lifetimes,
Riding his luck on Fortune’s filament
Trying to trust to God, his skill
And RJ Mitchell:
Any or all of them –
Whoever, Whatever would bring him home.
Victory?
Victory would have to pray for itself.

Am I looking at a ‘keep-him-safe’ keepsake
Worn religiously
By a proud and prayerful mother
Or a fearful and desperate lover,
Or maybe a memorial medal
That could hold its head up high
In the company of a whole host of
Victoria Crosses?

I would like to think this badge of honour was borne
Upon a mother’s breast
His young face, forever,
To his Mother of Pearl pressed.