Notes on ‘Missed Chances’

I wrote this poem in 1990, in a series of layby’s between  Grantshouse on the A1 and Glasgow Docks.  I was driving a wagon to deliver a wood chipping machine for forwarding to somewhere in the Highlands.  My cousin and Auntie were talking about going to India and asked me to go with them, but I couldn’t afford it.  I was pondering this when the first two lines popped into my head.  I pulled into the next layby and wrote them down, then set off again.  As soon as I pulled back into the traffic, the next pair of lines arrived and I had to stop at the next layby to write them down.  I knew that I had to get the lines down asap; I am famous for my terrible short-term memory and would have totally forgotten the words by the time I returned home. I had to stop at every opportunity to write the lines  as they popped into my head. It was very tiresome but this was just after I’d discovered I could write some passable poetry and I think it probably all went to my head.   I have published the much-edited and refined version of this poem, which takes away the repetitive line beginings and replaces them with words more fitting to the subject of each line.   I may put the polished version up if anyone’s interested!

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