It was high up in the sky, a cloud shaped like a bird? No shaped like a white dove. A dove of peace.
All around the world people looked up and saw it. The symbol of peace.
We saw it one evening, then again the next day. It was happening everywhere. People were posting images on the Web. On visage journal and quick telegraph!
The government’s didn’t like it. They asked their troops and scientists to investigate. Look at the occurrences. Telescopes were trained on each cloud. Radar and radio telescopes. No sign of a reason. It was a mystery.
A week after it started it ended. People saw Elephants and crocodiles in the clouds, turtles and Teddy bears. But no mote of dust or speck of mist became a dove of peace. People started to miss them. Fights broke out between neighbours, children cried. The world had lost magic. Sadness flew round the world. Maybe one day there woukd be an answer.
This popped up on my Facebook memories today, it’s a mural I painted on lining paper on the wall in the Arnold Bennett suite at the Leopard Hotel, in Burslem, Stoke on Trent. It’s about 13 or 14 years since I painted it. It’s based on the Burslem Riot which happened at the same time as other riots were happening in the country about how people were being treated. I think it was organised by the chartists in 1843 (when they were trying to get the vote if I remember right). The riot act was read to disperse the crowd. A man called Josiah Heapy was shot dead by the troops and is remembered as a victim of oppression by the local elite. The main characters in the ainting were all based on people I knew.
Mallaband-Brown 