Oct 2020 – Shirley The Downfield Laureate

If you drive along the road from Overton to Heysham, Lancashire you will come to the Village of Sunderland Point, a small village which consists of a row of Georgian houses looking out over an estuary; a sanctuary for many seabirds. The road leading into the village is flooded twice a day at high tide so beware. Sunderland Point was also a prominent port for ships trading in sugar and tobacco particularly those ships that were too big to traverse the narrow waterway leading to the larger Port of Lancaster

If you take a short walk out of the village along a lane overgrown with blackberry bushes and trees, you reach a green field where you will find the grave of a young black slave who was named “Sambo”. It is said that he came to Sunderland Point from the West Indies in 1736 on board his Master’s ship where he served as a cabin boy. “Sambo” was left there when his Master sailed off on a smaller boat to Lancaster on business.

While his Master was away, “Sambo” died. One theory is that he was so stricken by his Master’s abandonment of him that he died of a broken heart. Another is that he wasted away and died from an illness against which he had no immunity. It is said that he died in Upsteps Cottage, No1 The Lane. It is not known whether or not his Master eventually came back for him. I suppose that the whole truth is now lost in the mists of time

“Sambo” or “Samboo” [As stated on his grave stone] was buried in open windswept land looking out towards the Irish Sea. Soon word spread about this little grave in unconsecrated ground and people started to visit the village looking for it.

One such visitor was the Reverend James Watson, a retired headmaster from Lancaster who visited the site in 1795. He was so taken by the stories about “Sambo” that he proceeded to collect money for a plaque upon which he had a poem that he had written engraved.

James’ brother, William Watson, was actually a prominent Lancaster slave trader making the epitaph written by James on Sambo’s headstone all the more compelling :

Full sixty years the angry winter’s wave,
Has thundering dashed this bleak and barren shore,
Since Sambo’s head laid in this lonely grave,
Lies still and ne’er will hear their turmoil more.

Full many a Sand-bird chirps upon the Sod
And many a moonlight Elfin round him trips

Full many a Summer’s Sunbeam warms the Clod
And many a teeming cloud upon him drips.

But still he sleeps — till the awakening Sounds
Of the Archangel’s Trump new life impart

Then the GREAT JUDGE his approbation founds
Not on man’s COLOR but his worth of heart

The Reverend James Watson’s verse on the grave was written in 1796, and can still be seen. The content is a forerunner of Martin Luther King’s famous oration in 1963:

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.”

To Tricia

There’s the tree now.

She sees a beautiful silver sheen on the blackness of the Tay
A tree stands up in silhouette as if pointing the way
For Tricia running along with zest
Her heart a pounding in her chest

In the distance the dolphins leap
Gliding and diving into the deep
Watched over by the gulls who call out
Their musical murmurs clearer than shouts

Does their freedom mock our solitude
Or are we the mockers with no excuse
Who thought the world was ours to use
But our beautiful land we did abuse

The spring is here and black birds nest
The cherry blossoms flower
They speak of the fleeting nature of life
Love, sorrow and power

So thanks to Mother Nature for this cheer
And welcoming us as guests
Now we must use our power
To give back what was lent
Shirley Costello Gibson 04.04.2020 copyright

Wendy’s Fairy shoe

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