Hard to believe this was forty years ago. I remember clearly coming home from work, switching on the TV and being puzzled by a pale blue blank screen, which turned out to be sky. After the realisation, for some reason I dug out an old Olivetti typewriter and proceeded to tap out the following one slow letter at a time. I've still got the original page somewhere, faded and sellotaped together. I'd never really written anything lyrically before. I think it must have been triggered by Neil's Countdown coupled with the tragedy.
To the seven – Challenger 28/1/86
Close Up
Five–ten Tuesday
Return from work
Turn on the tube
An early evening view
Take in some cathode ray
In our need to smooth away
Another ordinary day
Earlier, travelling home
Or maybe just before
An Ocean shone in morning sun
Much brighter than before
In once a cloudless sky
Now filled with molten ore
A sudden shock! – a close up shot!
An acrid veil – a violent hail
A firework show
And now we know
Now they scan the galleries
Agony for the VIPs
Seven times those lost souls numbers
Numbed unsoothable mass
Seventy times how many million
Intrude into this loss
Forgive us now our hidden stare
Our fascination for the glare
As we follow fragments down
On Earth beneath all heads should bow
So now our friends, farewell adieu
You gave us more than you ever knew
Please understand why tears are few
Where catastrophe is glamour too
Crikey, seems like yesterday. It wasn't long after I'd started my first full time job and now I'm retired. Which some people never got chance to.
Picnic - could you please not use that dark font? Some members have expressed a preference to use dark mode and unfortunately your text is not very readable in that mode.
(https://i.ibb.co/NdwtLbdh/drk.png)
Quote from: Slim on January 29, 2026, 03:57:30 PMPicnic - could you please not use that dark font? Some members have expressed a preference to use dark mode and unfortunately your text is not very readable in that mode.
(https://i.ibb.co/NdwtLbdh/drk.png)
Sorry, I don't quite understand. Is it all my posts or just this one? If it's them all you're not missing much anyway. Just the ramblings of a crabbit old guy.
Just a couple of recent ones - have you changed the way you post? The post I'm replying to is fine so I'm guessing you use an external editor for some posts? I do that as well sometimes but you need to paste as plain text.
As one crabbit old guy to another your ramblings are generally interesting and thoughtful so I don't want people to miss out. If I can help let me know.