The first time I remember actually being conscious of the use of the spoken word, apart from repeating Nursery Rhymes and infants oft-repeated chatter, was kneeling on Dad's lap after Nellie, my elder sister, had taken prior turn saying, along with Dad - "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild", a little poem we used as our very first prayer.

With saying the same the same prayer nightly, I came both to know the poem, and to master a difficulty - a childlike faltering lisp, that gave me a hard job of properly pronouncing - the word 'simplicity'. Nellie got Uncle Fred to write the word out large and in syllables, then - syllable by syllable, she pressed out the sound with her forefinger, just as she did when we read the "Chick's Own" together, before Uncle Fred taught me to read too - enabling Nellie and I to matriculate to "The Rainbow" and "The Children's Newspaper". This simple prayer lasted the four of us for several months - until Dad taught Nellie and I the Lords Prayer.

Soon, we had grown up quite a bit and were encouraged to kneel by the bed and to say the prayers on our own. We strung the two prayers together and added our own little private one. Nellie - as with most things - taught me how to do this.
We judjed the length of this prayer and the speed of recitation by the temperature and light or dark of the late evening. It was the days before central heating for homes and of cold linoleum where the little wollen rugs couldn't reach! So - cold nights - short prayers gabbled! Light summer nights we had longer prayers which led on to discussions.

I know that, even as a child, I appreciated the rhythm of "Gentle Jesus" whilst still enjoying the seeming irregular lines of the Lord's Prayer. Though always I wondered why we had not to be led into "Skem Station"?

At this point in my tale a word or two in explanation might not come amiss. I was born in Skelmersdale and have always had a special regard for the town; in my old age I estimate that it was the only town for which I was ever chronically homesick. We who loved it had a diminutive for it - we always called it "Skem". It was Skelmersdale when I sang sad songs about it - but Skem when I talked with Nellie and the others - and in my prayers. I was overjoyed when - many years later - I saw those four letters - bold - on a finger-post pointing to "Skem", - just that - as we neared there.

For "Skem station", too, there is an explanation that is needful. Skelmersdale was a small town then - little more than a village. "It's a nice little place - but one blink and you're through it" my eldest nephew said when I asked his opinion and hungered for praise of the town.
It was a small town and though the odd red Ribble bus rattled and rumbled through to Southport in one direction, and to Wigan in the other, there were very few motor cars about. There must have been at least one, for Mary Brown's Father was a Chaffeur and dressed smartly in brown, shiny, leather leggings and knee-breeches and a peaked cap. Rumour or gossip had it that he had driven a Colonel around in a big car in France and that after the War - the first World War that is - the Colonel had been able to arrange to keep car and chaffeur, and that the Colonel lived only a short bike ride out of Skelmersdale. Even the Doctor - a Doctor Rotherham - a rather stern, almost frightening man, had a horse and trap, as had other notables. Steam wagons would snort and snuffle through the narrow cobbled streets, but at never more than twelve miles an hour - the speed limit at that time and few vehicles could reach it let alone exceed it.

Skem folk seemed little inclined to travel further than Up-Holland (o'er t' brook) by bus and would choose to walk to most of the neighbouring villages like Rainford and Lathom and even further afield than that - Ormskirk Market for instance. They went to Liverpool and Manchester (Blackpool and Southport in due season) and similarly-distanced places by rail - so Skem station always signified pleasure of some sort.

It was the great era of steam engines and to travel by one was the pinnacle of all accomplishment. To be able to wait and watch the engines and trains go by from the platform was the next best thing! Both Nellie and I loved engines and their wagons and coaches and very rarely passed the Station without devising some means of getting on to the platform. We considered ourselves very lucky in having an Uncle who was both remarkably handsome and an engine driver. I was always very proud of him, but particularly so as a schoolboy. Constantly I hoped to meet him on Skem station in all his regalia - they were more smartly dressed in those days. This was consummated much, much later - when I became a man as a matter of fact - but thereby hangs another tale concerning Old Skem which might be told should I live long enough.

Auntie Kitty - my Mother's sister and the engine driver's wife, lived in Liverpool most of her married life, and would visit Skem and us as often as she could when we were all young. She chose to travel by train which was the chief means of travelling in those days. She, fortunately for her, had a pass which entitled her to travel at a reduced fare, or no fare at all - and she liked travelling! Nellie and I would wait on the platform for her arrival - hours before she was due. Sometimes we would invent or imagine an impending visit - just the two of us.
Imagination gave us so many things in those days and lent us wings that conquered both time and distance. Together we knew no limits or confines. As well, this invention would give us dignity, added patience - so we said - and a proper right to sit and stand on the platform. Even though we thought this - our approach to the platform was very decorous and we would stand still for ages, then positively sidle - inch by inch - until we reached the wooden slats on the metal form and then sit - slowly and with a sigh.
The Porter sensed our security of tenure and went about his many jobs - just throwing the odd observation to us when he passed near, until he decreed either that our dinner might be ready or that Auntie Kitty would have missed her train and would not be comming until much, much later - if at all!

Often we were plagued by conscience and wondered if we were suspected. With hindsight and wisdom that increasing age brings - through experience mainly - I realised we were. With the same brand of knowledge I formed the conclusion that it didn't matter one jot whether it was Skem Station or temptation - they were one and the same. Frequently, when we were less adventurous, we would sit on the steps of the footbridge that spanned the level crossing and the roadway just waiting for the engines. When a passenger train neared we would scamper to the top of the bridge - on the level part above the steps - and wait until the engine was immediately beneath us and we were surrounded by warm, white steam and the perculiar smell of sulphur, smoke and soot.
This was Skem Station. Perhaps - because we had not revealed the truth about our motives; perhaps because of our dirty soot-smudged faces; perhaps because of the smell of sulphorous smoke and soot lingering in our clothes - we had to pray - nightly - "and lead us not into Skem Station" either as a plea, prayer or penance.

Alas - Skem Station is no more. There is no platform - no footbridge even! The whole town has considerably altered and become a New Town. I have visited the place but can't like it quite as much in its new lay-out. The old familiar places and faces have almost all gone. I have written a palinode (which is the direct opposite to an ode - a poem which pays tributes) but hesitate to include it in this series as a cousin of mine worked so hard on the Council to retain the greenery and nicer parts of Skem.

I pray still! Almost the same prayer - said in the same way that is - but, being a much older man, I pray "and lead us not into temptation". It sounds the same - but if I have remembered the old days during the prayer in the church service - or as I did after Alan (the Minister) had spoken at George's funeral (George had been a senior official on the Great Western when it was Great, he had loved the age of steam) - and I have been daydreaming - then Skem Station features again and I am with Nellie, amongst the churns, baskets of live pigeons and poultry, baskets and straw-rope hampers of all kinds of vegetables that were grown in the neighbouring fields.
I hear the strong hiss of steam - the clank of metal - the heavy rumble of flanged metal wheel on metal rail - the whistles of engine and man - the shouts. I smell again the steam, the sulphur, the soot - the smell of oil on hot metal and the unforgettable smell of rain on chrysanthemums bound for the local markets. I hear again the penetrating sound of the Guard's whistle and then the train puffing and panting away in the dim distance until one last faint whistle that comes like a frolicsome fish leaping out of the water, then falling back into the water - frightened!
Then - all engine noises fade - vision waits rather than watches - and two kids wait for an Auntie who may not come.

It was several years later when Kath and I went on a holiday visit to Yorkshire (where we all went to live when I was nine - because Dad could never earn enough money to keep us all in Skem), that I chatted with Nellie. We were remembering our childhood and these incidents. Nellie seemed almost ashamed even then, at our deception, and indrew her breath with a loud sucking noise - a childish mannerism of hers I well remembered - as though it was some horrible crime we had perpetrated.
I remonstrated, remembering now that we both attended a church of our own accord. "We didn't tell a lie, Nellie. We didn't tell a lie!" - making this indisputable - so I thought.

"But we left the truth unsaid!" said Nellie emphatically.
It left us in thoughtful silence - there was no gainsaying that!

Nellie was the elder and had been the first to go to school.