Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells And sights, before the dark of reason grows

From Captured by Bells by John Betjeman, Chapter IV, page 33.

Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells 

And sights, before the dark of reason grows. 

Ears! Hear again the wild sou'westers whine! 

Three days on end would the September gale 

Slam at our bungalows; three days on end 

Rattling cheap doors and making tempers short. 

It mattered not, for then enormous waves 

House-high rolled thunderous on Greenaway, 

Flinging up spume and shingle to the cliffs. 

Unmoved amid the foam, the cormorant 

Watched from its peak. In all the roar and swirl 

The still and small things gained significance. 

Somehow the freckled cowrie would survive 

And prawns hang waiting in their watery woods; 

Deep in the noise there was a core of peace; 

Deep in my heart a warm security. 

Nose! Smell again the early morning smells: 

Congealing bacon and my father's pipe; 

The after-breakfast freshness out of doors 

Where sun had dried the heavy dew and freed 

Acres of thyme to scent the links and lawns; 

The rotten apples on our shady path 

Where blowflies settled upon squashy heaps, 

Intent and gorging; at the garden gate 

Reek of Solignum on the wooden fence; 

Mint round the spring, and fennel in the lane, 

And honeysuckle wafted from the hedge; 

The Lynams' cess-pool like a body-blow; 

Then, clean, medicinal and cold the sea. 

"Breathe in the ozone, John. It's iodine." 

But which is iodine and which is drains? 

Salt and hot sun on rubber water-wings . 

Home to the luncheon smell of Irish stew 

And washing-up stench from the kitchen sink 

Because the sump is blocked. The afternoons 

Brought coconut smell of gorse; at Mably's farm 

Sweet scent of drying cowdung; then the moist 

Exhaling of the earth in Shilla woods —

First earth encountered after days of sand. 

Evening brought back the gummy smell of toys 

And fishy stink of glue and Stickphast paste, 

And sleep inside the laundriness of sheets. 

Eyes! See again the rock-face in the lane, 

Years before tarmac and the motor-car. 

Across the estuary Stepper Point 

Stands, still unquarried, black against the sun; 

On its Atlantic face the cliffs fall sheer. 

Look down into the weed world of the lawn —

The devil's-coach-horse beetle hurries through 

Lifting its tail up as I bar the way 

To further flowery jungles. See once more 

The Padstow ferry, worked by oar and sail, 

Her outboard engine always going wrong, 

Ascend the slippery quay's up-ended slate, 

The sea-weed hanging from the harbour wall. 

Hot was the pavement under, as I gazed 

At lanterns, brass, rope and ships' compasses 

In the marine-store window on the quay. 

The shoe-shop in the square was cool and dark. 

The Misses Quintrell, fancy stationers, 

Had most to show me — dialect tales in verse 

Published in Truro (Netherton and Worth) 

And model lighthouses of serpentine. 

Climb the steep hill to where that belt of elm 

Circles the town and church tower, reached by lanes 

'Whose ferny ramparts shelter toadflax flowers 

And periwinkles. See hydrangeas bloom 

In warm back-gardens full of fuchsia bells. 

To the returning ferry soon draws near 

Our own low bank of sand-dunes; then the walk 

Over a mile of quicksand evening-cold. 

It all is there, excitement for the eyes, 

Imagined ghosts on unfrequented roads 

Gated and winding up through broom and gorse 

Out of the parish, on to who knows where? 

What pleasure, as the oil-lamp sparkled gold 

On cut-glass tumblers and the flip of cards, 

To feel protected from the night outside: 

Safe Cornish holidays before the storm!