‘UTTER admiration’ for our NHS and the people who staff it inspired a teacher from Teignmouth to write a poem for a bestselling book raising funds for the service’s charities.

Alastair Smith (pictured right), the assistant principal at Queen Elizabeth’s School in Crediton, said when he heard the ‘amazing story’ behind the creation of a collection called ‘Poems for a Pandemic’ he was determined to contribute to it.

‘Angela Marston, an ex-palliative care nurse from the Midlands, while fearing death from Covid, found poetry coming to her mind,’ said Alastair.

‘She set about gathering an anthology of poems written by key workers, published poets and Covid patients from around the world.

‘She successfully gained a publishing deal with Harper Collins and ‘poems for a pandemic’ is currently Number One on the Amazon kindle poems best seller list.’

All proceeds from the book go to NHS Charities Together.

‘As an assistant head teacher who is shielding but working full time from home, I wrote a poem and was delighted to have mine published among the chosen 100,’ adds Alastair.

‘My reasons for entering the competition all started from our Paradise Road Whatsapp community group in Teignmouth.

‘Neighbours exchange goods, offers of help, pictures and cheery messages. I wrote a few poems for that and a neighbour told me about the appeal on Facebook for workers from the front line to submit their poems for possible inclusion in the anthology that Angela was putting together.’

Alastair lives in Teignmouth with his wife, Lucy, and two children. His wife is a children’s occupational therapist at Torbay Hospital.

‘My utter admiration for the NHS is mainly driven by my own medical needs.

‘I have Psoriatic Arthritis and am shielding because I am on weekly Immuno-Suppressant injections. I’ve also had two hip replacements on the NHS in the last seven years (one was in January) and quite simply, I owe my current good quality of life to the NHS.

‘Without the treatment I get from the Rheumatology Team at Torbay Hospital, and the OrthopaedicSsurgery team at the Royal Devon and Exeter Infirmary I would be basically disabled.’

‘Poems for a Pandemic’ is available in E-Book from all the main sources for £4.99 with all money going to NHS Charities Together. A paperback version is hopefully planned, dependent on sales numbers of the e-book, and will be released later in the summer with Harper Collins kindly lending their weight to the process.

If and when...

If I had told you, you’d have thunk

I was joking,

the way all this has went;

Like some alternative universe

with its lines and corners bent

If you dreamt it, you’d not imagine

how this has all turned out,

Like the entire world has gotten itself

all warped, with it’s insides out

If you think about this a while too long

it’ll crack your mind in two,

Cos the way this whole thing’s looking

there’s no obvious ‘shall we do’

If I said it was forever

you’d quite rightly cry,

And shout me down and put me right,

Heck, that idea won’t fly

But, If we stop and think this over

and try to find a clue

We’d surely all conclude as one,

There is a ‘we must do’

If I told you we’d end up stronger

Would you holler with delight?

I really hope you do you know,

Cos I know I’m bloody right

If this is not forever

And we all, united cope,

This thing can’t last much longer, no

cos It hasn’t got a hope

And If we can all just picture this,

Together if you will?

The bad stuff has all gone away;

But the good stuff lives on still...

©?Alastair Smith

March 2020