Welcome

I first met Grayson in 1972 when I was freshly released from prison after serving a three year sentence for my involvement in the animal liberation movement. I had been young and naive, caught up in the spirit of the sixties, but my incarceration was to change my life. During my time in HMP Holloway, I found comfort in books but my time was made easier once I’d discovered the dark, often comic, but usually morally complex poetry of Grayson Ellis, the so-called ‘Bard of Shropshire’. Just before my release, I had written to him and he had agreed to meet me.

Grayson was courteous from the first moment I met him. He did not judge me except to commend me for liking for the poetry of Philip Larkin. Over a pint of his favourite ale, he recited much of the ‘Whitsun Weddings’ to me from heart. He was reluctant to recite his own verse and said that it ‘didn’t deserve to take oxygen’ from the poetry of the man who he considered his ‘spiritual father’. Eventually, however, he relented and it was there in the ‘Smiling Farmer’ in Ruckley and Langley that I first heard the poem, ‘Urgle Went T’Warber’, recited by the poet who had blessed us with its creation.

Years passed but I kept in contact with Grayson. I had taken work for the local council and I soon had a family of my own to look after. Yet I had always wanted to work for Grayson, believing that his poetry was a vital link to the oral traditions of this country. However, Grayson was always too shy and retiring to accept my offers of help. He remained reluctant when I suggested ways of spreading his work.

It is only in recent years, after my family have moved away and I have spent more time with him, that Grayson’s stance softened to the point that he has now relented and I’m happy to set up this blog in his name. Grayson has given me permission to reprint many of his old poems and to also publish work as yet unseen in printed form. I can’t tell you what an honour this is and I hope that you will enjoy this adventure in the English language. I hope you will begin to see the genius of a gentle, genial bard, that I like to call my friend.

I would like to thank Peter and Susan from 'Comdex Wed Design' for helping me set up this blog. And I would, naturally, like to thank Grayson for permission to bring his work to a wider audience.