19 ASPINALL STREET MYTHOLMROYD

For the first eight years of his life Ted Hughes lived at No 1 Aspinall Street, Mytholmroyd, here at the opposite end of Aspinall Street Ted's unlcle Albert and his family lived in this house. Tragically Albert was to take his own life, a terrible thing for any family. Ted Hughe's poem "Sacrifice" is about his uncle. When Ted was a boy they played "billets"together in nearby Banksfields. Billets is a game where a wood-cutting a few inches long, (the billet) is balaced on the end of a stave, its then tossed into the air and whacked as far as possible the distance determining the winner. A real family tragedy.

 

SACRIFICE (Part)

 

An armchair Samson. Baffled and shorn,

His dreams bulged into forearms

That performed their puppet-play of muscles

To make a nephew stare. He and I

 

Lammed our holly billets across Bankfields-

a five inch propeller climbing the skylines

For two, theree seconds - to the drop. And the paced-out length

Of his leash! the limit of human strength!

 

Ted Hughes 1930-1998.

Done