I saw the doc' today

I saw the doc' today.

Things are okay, but...

Better have it checked,

exercise ECG for you, he said.

I, of course, agreed.

*

I've seen pictures

of a treadmill in a prison.

Dreadful thing to torture humans on.

Grey lives made grayer,

to pay for crimes that

never could be paid for;

they hardly saw the light of day.

*

Thankfully the one awaiting me

is part of modern therapy,

hooked up to such gadgetry

it will record how I do

or don't perform, heart stressed

and under pressure...

*

From the data, all being well,

specialists will then meditate,

then medicate, and hopefully

I'll say: The doc' saw me today.

*

© Dennis Crompton 1996

(first published www.denniscrompton.wordpress.com 2013)

Preston: school and prison

The Wesleyan Methodist School in St Mary's Street was the school I attended when we left Longridge to live in Preston around 1942. Across from the school was a small door set in very high brick wall that was almost a complete square. Inside was the Preston prison, complete with treadmill, for the prisoners to exercise on.

During World War II, on a siren warning of possible enemy action, all the pupils and staff from the school walked across the road, through the small door to the prison and into the air-raid shelters dug into the prison grounds. We never had to use them in the event of real enemy action but we did practice getting to them a few times.

As an older man, I used to shock some people by saying (with a serious look on my face), that I had to confess to a lie I had told when I joined the British Army and then the Royal New Zealand Air Force: that I had never been to prison ... then told them the above.

Dennis Crompton © 2013
(first published www.denniscrompton.wordpress.com 2013)