This wasn't only a poetry gig for me, which would have made the experience more enjoyable personally, rather it was something I had to do - something I had wanted to do in various forms for many years but never got around to - writing this piece as both personal undertaking and an attempt to create a composite image of the generation that witnessed these events ..
Since my dad passed away the Xmas on Christmas Island poem became more a response to my own feelings about him and a tribute perhaps, to my father and the other men and their families who were involved in the first British Hydrogen bomb tests of the late 50s, and so became more than a documentary video of an historic event .. but I still wanted to keep an element of lightness, of simplicity about it ..
Due to it's personal nature and my own emotional response, the piece was late in coming to fruition, including visits to various sites, leafing through old maps, trawling video and pictoral evidence of the events, as well as digging up memories on the sandy beaches of my youth - I have printed only a few excerpts here from the longer narrative .. but I hope I have managed to express some of the multiple facets of this complex and unresolved issue in this personal performance poetry piece ..
Naturally, a Big Thank You to all those who made an appearance .. both in front of the mic, and as part of the audience .. it was good to see a few new faces as well as the usual terrific audience of Derby poets and promenaders.
