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TBS Members were treated to a spellbinding evening of entertainment when acclaimed Performance Poet, Peter Wyton, paid a visit to Saxton Village Hall for our monthly meeting. Peter captured the essence of battlefield verse and held us in awe, before performing his specially commissioned Towton poem ‘Advice From The One Percent’, an extremely moving elegy. After the break, he launched into more humorous mode and had us all in stitches with his comical verse, the following being a typical example:

HADRIAN’S HOLE IN THE WALL

Ave!

Petrus Poeticus Wytonus,

Roman soldier, 6th legion,

Never served in a colder region.

I guard this wall, which was built, they say,

To keep the Picts and the Scots away.

I’ve never seen one. It’s quiet here

And it’s Saturn’s night, and I fancy a beer,

So I’m off down town, but I need some money.

To get it, I have to use this funny contraption

Here in the wall itself,

A mosaic set in a little shelf.

You take your very own personal pin

To this orifice and you stab it in.

Then you tap the tiles with your numbers, see.

- lll lX ll V

And cestercii and denarii

Come tumbling out most plentifully.

Let’s hear it for Hadrian’s hole in the wall,

The greatest Roman invention of all.

I’m off to behave with a total lack of decorum,

In the forum.

Hang on a minute.

There’s a queue for this gadget and I’m the first in it.

I said, don’t push, mush.

Oops.

Approximately MCDCLXXX barbarians,

Woad-smothered, mud covered great big hairy ones.

With my trusty shield

I shall not yield.

With my valiant sword

I defy the horde.

Tell them at home,

Tell them in Rome.

I fight. I am wounded. I stagger. I fall.

Defending Hadrian’s hole-in-the-wall.

©Peter Wyton

We are proud to announce that Peter has agreed to be our Poet Laureate for the year. A first for a battlefield society perhaps? You can read Peter’s Towton poem in our next edition of the Towton Herald and watch this space for further details of our venture into verse.”

WYTON GOES TO WAR

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