I remember

I remember 16th of August 1977 - ‘The King of Rock and Roll is Dead’ shouts a passer by, the ropes on my swing go slack, I drop out of the sky, ‘Love Me Tender’, ‘Hound dog’ and ‘Return to Sender’ play non-stop on the radio, that’s what I remember.

Summer 1987 - Sitting in the living room, watching News at Ten, a public health campaign for a disease attacking men. Tombstones on the telly, leaflets through our door, Don’t Die of Ignorance drops onto the floor.

31st August 1997 - Listening to the radio driving in our car, music interrupted by an announcement from afar - a car crash in a tunnel all for a photograph, a nation left bereft, they’d lost their queen of hearts.

3rd May 2007 - I put the kids to bed their foreheads softly kissing, then watch the evening news a little girl is missing, taken from her bed while her siblings slept, fifteen years later. they haven’t found her yet.

29 March 2017 - Happy anniversary we want to celebrate but they triggered Article 50 and it became too late. There was no turning back Brexit was now certain, we cut our ties to Europe and drew the final curtain.

17th August 2022 - I remember where I was, that’s what people say, for significant events we can recall the day, etched upon our memory written like a scar, the markers in our life that make us who we are.