Shirley Toulson was a writer and editor from England born in 1924 who came under the influence of Celtic Christianity. She has written extensively about the social history of the countryside since 1974 and is considered a leading authority on ancient tracks and drove roads in Wales. The poem recalls the poet's mother who died around 12 years ago. The mother would look at a photograph from her childhood where she went to the beach with her two cousins and uncle. Though the sea appears unchanged, the people in the photograph represent a time that is now past. The poet finds their laughter and memory of that time now silence with the passing of the years since the mother's death.

3. Shirley Toulson was born
in 20. 1924 in England.
she was writer, editor of
magazine. she came
under the influence of
Celtic Christianity.
Shirley Toulson has been
writing books on the
social history of the
countryside since 1974.
She is a leading authority
on ancient tracks and
drove roads and is the
author of 'The Drovers'
Roads of Wales' and

5. The poet remembers her
mother who died about
twelve year ago. The
poet recalls how her
mother used to look at a
photograph and remember
her own childhood. The
photograph was taken
when her mother had
gone for a sea holidays
with her cousins and her
uncle. Looking at her

6. The cardboard shows me how it was
When the two girl cousins went paddling,
Each one holding one of my mother’s hands,
As she the big girl – some twelve year or so.

7. All three stood still to smile through their hair
At the uncle with the camera. A sweet face,
My mother’s, that was before I was born.

8. And the sea, which appears to have changed
less,
Washed their terribly transient feet.

9. Some twenty - thirty - years later
She’d laugh at the snapshot. “See Betty
And Dolly,” she’d say, “and look how they
Dressed us for the beach.”

10. The sea holiday
Was her past, mine is her
laughter.
Both wry
With the laboured ease of
loss.

11. Now she’s been dead nearly as many years
As that girl lived. And of this circumstance
There is nothing to say at all.
Its silence silences.