By Andy Spearman
I have it on good authority that Roger Hudson will be 86 in the very near future but you wouldn’t have thought it if you’d seen him in action this morning at the launch of his latest collection of poems in the Highlanes Gallery.
A man of that vintage has, if he’s lucky, a wealth of memories and that is certainly the case with Roger. His introductory speech, and indeed his poems in “Hidden in Green” as the new collection is called, is full of memories.
Memories of being evacuated from the City of London at the age of thee to leafy Surrey, Being bullied at school, his struggles with the seemingly convoluted workings of the educational system of the time all came in for special mention As did his hatred of Latin.
“In effect I out together my own media studies course” he said. Explaining that his involvement in his college magazine, his activism in the students union and a film society taught him more about the world and provided him his love of language than any college course.
His home grown course has served him well because sixty and more years later that love affair with language is still going strong.
Roger’s enthusiasm for life shone through his readings today and his readings were sprinkled with the wicked sense of humour for which he is well known.
“Knowledge is something you crammed in during the weeks before the exams” he said at one stage, “but there was never enough time….” He was interrupted at that stage by his own mobile ringing in his pocket.
Hidden in Green is a collection of 52 poems which Roger has dedicated “…to our grandchildren Oisin and Alana, Lincoln and Tara and all the other youngsters starting their adventures in life with the strange distortions of Covid as mine started with World War II.”
Roger’s book is infused with his love of words, their sounds as well as their meaning, parents and teachers would do well to share them with their children and students.
Here is an extract from one of the poems from the book:
FOR LOVE OF WORDS
Words I love?
Well, I don’t know about that.
Words I could like, maybe.
Curmudgeon springs to mind,
With that slithery slidey sound mudge, mudgeon.
And skulduggery with its thudding repetition-skuldug-and
snatched ending
how’s that for a likeable word?
Words that develop and change,
Merge diflerent sounds,
Make me use my mouth and tongue.
Gymnastics for the voice machine.
That’s what I like.
Catapult and catatonic.
Cretaceous and nymphomaniac.
Ambidextrous and philanthropist.
Tyrant and tyrannosaurus.
crash and suck.
sycamore and honeysuckle.
hippopotamus and hypochondriac.
hypocrite and sycophant.
neerdowell and eejit.
But love’
