BLOG OF THE WEEK ~ AN UPDATE WITH OLD EGG

We have another wonderful poet to visit this week, my friends: Robin Kimber, whom we know affectionately as Old Egg. Robin writes at Robin’s Nest, and lives in Adelaide, southern Australia, only six miles from the ocean. Robin recently celebrated 80 years of very fine living, so we are most pleased to be meeting with him again, to congratulate him and hear more of his fascinating stories. 

Old Egg

Sherry:  Robin, we last spoke in our Life of a Poet feature in 2014, so we are long overdue for another chat! I have a question that I imagine many might have wondered, from time to time: why are you called Old Egg? I so love that name!! 

Robin: I gained entrance to a Grammar School in England after World War II in the town that I lived in, Eggar's Grammar School in Alton, Hants. It was founded in 1642, but has long since been sold and turned into a housing complex. Past pupils were known as Old Eggars...thus the Old Egg. I helped to run the Old Eggars organization many many years ago, and played for their soccer team.

The replacement school is much larger, and probably much more suitable for current needs, but the old school's demise was still quite sad.

Sherry: It must have been very sad. Thank you for this explanation, Old Egg. Will you tell us about your recent birthday? 

Robin: Early May was busy with Mothers Day in Australia, and my birthday as well. Most of the family (12 of us) hired a house boat on the River Murray for a long weekend to celebrate both events. It was my 80^th birthday, which is nothing to boast about, especially my difficulty to board and disembark from the boat via the gang plank with my wobbly legs!

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Sherry: Warmest congratulations on your 80 years. What a treasure trove of history you must be. And what a wonderful way to celebrate, en famille, in a houseboat on the river. Yay!

Robin: As it is the start of our Autumn/Winter season, it was not the best for sun baking or swimming, but the river is interesting at all times. The Murray/Darling combination is the one and only big river in Australia, starting in both northern Queensland and the Snowy Mountains on the border of New South Wales and Victoria. The river (with difficulty) flows out to sea in South Australia, where we live. Much of the river water evaporates in the hot weather and is used extensively for irrigation and domestic use in the southern states.

Sherry: Australia is so beautiful. You are a lucky man. How is your writing coming along, Robin?

Robin: My various ills  make me less enthusiastic about everything…except sitting down and writing, which is probably very bad for me! I have this urge to write, which is great, but a walk down the beach would probably do more for me.

I am much like a butterfly with my writing, flitting from theme to theme, such as enduring love, being at one with nature, and even the lure of the city. Life’s experience allows me to delve back into my own personal experiences in those fields, and memories from many years back, even to childhood, come flooding back, as well as early romances, working in cities and many years bird-watching, which was my wife Maureen’s favorite pastime. There is nothing quite like getting lost in the forest or wide open spaces, alone with nature and really relishing that feeling, being with birds and animals that accept your presence; although an alpha male kangaroo might take umbrage that you are getting too close to the females!

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Sherry: I would love to see a live kangaroo!  And we love your poems, stories and memories so much! I especially enjoyed “Where My Love Is Found”. Let’s take a look at it, shall we?

Where My Love is Found

Home? He laughed out loud
When they asked him where he'd go
On his holiday

I feel more at ease
Walking on a lonely beach
Or in the forest green

Where the sea's whisper
Sings me a sweet lullaby
And soothes me to sleep

Fish nibbling my toes
There a crab waving a Hi!
And the broad blue sky

Breakers they'll applaud
At my visiting again
I know my heaven

The sand in my toes
The fresh salt wind in my eyes
With the scent of brine

Then there's the dark woods
With the tall whispering pines
I crave that feeling

Rustling of wild things
Now checking just who I am
Owls hoot the all clear

Creatures wander round
For they are not frightened of me
As insects buzz by

The stream ripples on
Little birds twitter and dive
Such place could I die

All my stress is gone
My happiness is found there
Of which do I dream

But you're right he said
I am going home once more
Where my love is found

Sherry: Sigh. Me, too, my friend. I love "I know my heaven." I know that feeling very well in the wild places. What might we find you doing when you aren’t writing, these days?

Robin: With regard to current urban living, I tend to visit a local café regularly, and it is so typical of Australia, where the owners are Italian, and there are barista and waiters and waitresses from all parts of the globe, South East Asia, India, Middle East, even other countries in Europe. They all know me by my first name and know I like to read the paper there and do the crosswords and read the cartoons. So while I’m there I observe people and find characters to write about in their looks, the conversation and even the romance, or, like me, a person alone whose story you don’t know but invent to produce another poem.  

Sherry: It sounds a great place for gathering material.  Robin, I am sure you have a wealth of stories. Would you like to share one?

Robin:  This true story, published in 2013, told a little of my history before I got married. I have added a haiku verse to make it into a haibun.

Last Train to Alton

It was a Saturday night in 1956 and I trotted along the lonely streets of the town. The pubs had long shut and all those years ago the traffic was light to non-existent. I was heading for the train station just about a mile away. The last train left at 5 minutes past midnight. My destination was home nine miles away. Well ten miles if you count the run from my girlfriend’s house to the station. Every Saturday night was the same, those lingering kisses and the last fond embrace had to be measured to the last second. I hadn’t missed a train yet but as we tended to stick to each other like glue a longer wait until the first train in the morning was always a possibility and being Sunday that would be a very long wait indeed.

I was going downhill now down Downing Street past the men's clothing store, past the fish shop and just as I passed the grocers two figures stepped out of the shadows.

“Just a minute lad” said one.

Just my luck, I could skirt the drunks and the tramps in doorways but to run into two policemen on a dull night shift was just what they needed to help pass their boring night away.

“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” said one. While the other sized me up with his torch.

I could barely talk as I was out of breath. I mumbled something about trying to catch the last train to Alton. However that was the problem. They weren’t interested in my plans but only what I had been doing.

“But where have you just run from?” the first one asked implying foul deeds I was escaping from.

So I had to relate where I had been, who with and why and the utter importance of me catching the last train that left in but a few minutes. He came closer and shone his torch in my face. My panting breath had no taint of alcohol perhaps only the sweet scent of my girlfriend so my innocence was convincing.

“OK my lad. Off you go, and don’t leave it so late next time.”

I resumed my run to the station. The level crossing gates were starting to close and as I scampered over the footbridge I knew that I would make it after all. On recounting my adventure to my girlfriend later she reluctantly made me leave a few minutes earlier in future. Less than a year later we were married so my worries were over and we stayed together all night…every night!

Soft skin luscious lips
How can I bear to leave you?      
We’ll marry in Spring

Sherry: Sigh. So sweet. And what a wonderful long marriage you enjoyed! You two were blessed. I most love your poems about your love for your wife, whom you lost, sadly, in 2010. Would you like to include one here?

Robin: One of my most popular posts on Poets United from 2014 might be appropriate.

Robin and Maureen on a cruise in 2010

That exquisite touch

There is no limit to my love

My eyes have long bent your way

For oh so many a year

So are you my Juliet?

Or like Ophelia in water drowned?

Maiden still, yet untouched, unloved

For I am no Romeo

Nor Hamlet yet

No, that is not the case

For with me you are the light

Eastward, both sun and hope rising

Just look my way my precious

And straight as an arrow

In flight I will come

And thus to lovers lane for us

So then the sight of you,

The sound of your voice

And that exquisite touch will

From that grain, sprout love

From this yearning

And all my parts will gladly sing

With utmost joy I pray

As you place your hand in mine

I'll see this love in your eyes too

Sherry: You have an exquisite touch with your poet's pen, my friend. Robin, in our first interview, you spoke of being a child in London during WWII. This fascinates me. Would you share a memory of that time with us?

Robin: Going back to the wartime, we did live more than thirty five miles outside of London, but my Dad commuted everyday regardless of the bombing. Very few people in Britain owned cars then, and those that did put them away for the “duration” (of the war, that is) as petrol (gas) was only available for those that needed to drive, such as doctors and delivery men. Most people used public transport. We walked the two miles to school each day or caught the bus which was very cheap. As you say, my father was rostered on to do fire watching duty some nights to extinguish incendiary bombs if they fell on the building. The idea was to place them in buckets of water before they exploded.

Sherry: It intrigues me to be interviewing someone who lived through that time, Robin. I have such an interest in that period in history. 

(Kids, if you would like more of Robin's story, do check out the interview from 2014, where he went into his most interesting life in more depth, his childhood years during the war, his wonderful love story with Maureen, and his family life in Australia. I would like to write the book!)

Robin: Reading through the first “Life of…”,  what was omitted was that both my wife Maureen and I later worked together in the same organization, after we were married. She was an analytical chemist, testing beer for a brewery, and I was an architectural assistant with them, designing new hotels and public houses (inns), in the Hampshire, Surrey and Sussex area. 

Much of the work was, however, upgrading older buildings to make them attractive, to win custom from other Brewers who, in those days, owned most hotels. However,  the lure of working and living in Australia persuaded us to migrate to South Australia with the family, where I have lived ever since. Luckily the children and their family still all live in the state too.

Sherry: It is fortunate your children and grandchildren still live nearby. How was life when you reached Australia, Robin? What a grand adventure it must have been for you!

Robin: When I came to Australia in 1966, jobs were asy to find. Immigration from many European countries after WW2 was encouraged, as Australia needed skilled people to change the country from a predominantly agricultural agricultural to a thriving, prosperous industrial nation.  I managed to get a job with the government-owned South Australian Railway.

I volunteered to work in the mid-north of South Australia, to design and supervise the construction of new stations and other new buildings, from the New South Wales border to the coast. (Promotion was more assured if you had worked in the country as well as the city.)

Mt. Remarkable in mid-north of South Australia

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The disadvantage was that Maureen was bringing up the children by herself, while I was stationed away during the week and only home at weekends. I was away for three years, but it was most valuable for me. When my work there was complete, I found promotion easier.

When the kids grew up and started getting married, Maureen went into partnership with a second hand bookseller, eventually buying the small shop she managed in Adelaide. It was called Bookmark Books. The "mark" in the name meant Maureen and Robin Kinber! It was just over the road from where I worked, so we used to go to work together. I even managed the shop on Sundays and her sister, who also lived in the area, on Wednesday.

Sherry: It all sounds glorious, Robin. I think I am living it a bit vicariously, through your stories. You made such a wonderful life together.

Your poem "Path to the Future" has such a beautiful message of hope. I think it would be a lovely poem to close our chat with, Old Egg. 

Path to the Future

Suns opaque shyness

It was one of those grey days
Everything was sad

Even the wind moaned
Melancholy, boisterous no more
Mature in mourning

There's always hope though
Laughing child and nimble lamb
May give us all hope

Mankind offends all
Mountains crumble and seas weep
Yet children still play

Lay me down to rest
Sure that a little one sees
Path to the future

Sherry: Our aging eyes seeing the devastation, set against the little one's eyes, looking forward with hope. This poem is a beauty, Robin.  

Thank you so much, my friend, for sharing more of your very interesting life with us. It gives us a wonderful backdrop for reading your poems, which we hope to enjoy for many more years. We are so happy to have you among us at Poets United. You are a beloved member of the community.

I am certain you enjoyed hearing more about our friend, Old Egg, as much as we did, kids. What a wonderful life, well-lived! Do come back and see who we talk to next. Who knows? It might be you!