The Old Armchair by Aesop, Crown Jewels Award Tile #3 Options

[Cleo_Serapis]

by Aesop in Homer's Homilies

The Old Armchair

The aging chair took pride of place,
next to the flickering fire.
And of all the things within the room
nothing was thought of higher.

Embossed and leather bound it was,
and filled with real horse hair;
And woe betide the one who sat
when Grandad should be there.

For fifty years and longer
it served to rest his head
and Grandad’s spirit lingered there
long after he was dead.

It spoke of many olden times
that came down through the years.
Of two world wars and times between,
the hopes the joys, the tears.

Grandad would sit, with pipe in hand,
telling stories of his youth.
We didn’t care what was fiction,
and what was Gospel Truth.

He’d tell us on a winter’s night,
beside that fireside glow,
of lands of burning desert,
and realms of ice and snow.

Of when he was a bosun
aboard the “Holy Grail”
The splendour of an ocean race
in a ship full rigged with sail.

His time worn hands would grasp his stick,
and he’d thump it on the floor,
to emphasise a salient point
as his tale was told once more.

He’d pontificate on philosophy,
and all things worth the knowing;
For he was conscious of our youth
and the paths where we’d be going.

That ramrod back and glint of eye,
inner strength that you could feel,
a golden heart and a tender soul,
with a will of tempered steel.

But this was all of yesteryear
and now I’m in my prime,
as I try to decide on what to do
with a chair that’s served it’s time.

Frayed and perished; cracked with age,
it seemed the die was cast.
Fated to feed the bonfire,
November approaching fast.

Then my eldest son stood up and spoke,
with a tremble in his voice.
He said we spoke of destruction,
as though we had no choice.

“Well, I remember Grandad,
though he’s faded in my mind.
I will have none of this sacrilege.
I feel the ties that bind.

That old armchair speaks to me,
though I hardly remember the man,
for I sit here when I’m troubled
and it helps me all it can.”

So that is how it came about
that we had the chair restored;
Back to its former glory
with hide and studs and board.

But as we took the chair apart,
upon that fateful day,
little did we realise
that the chair had more to say.

For there in the bowels of the chair,
where no human hand could reach,
a glint of metal caught our eyes,
and stopped our trivial speech.

I picked it up with a trembling hand
my mind at a total loss;
What on earth could this object be
in the shape of a Holy Cross.

For Valour beyond the call of duty
it said on the front;  like verse;
And Grandad’s name and number
when we turned it to reverse

The Victoria Cross was what it was;
Awarded at the Somme
and all those years it lay deep in the chair
unknown to anyone.

I felt the tears well in my eyes,
and a shame I could hardly bear,
when I thought of the greedy bonfire
and what I had planned for the chair.

Of all the tales that Grandad told,
when head of the house, ‘the Boss’;
He never mentioned his greatest tale,
the winning of the Cross.

But his armchair had kept the faith with him
on this proud and fateful day
Grandad had told his splendid tales
But the chair had the final say.