The Old Chimney Sweep

By mcscraic

Thu, 21 Mar 2024
  • 152 reads
5 comments
 

The Old Chimney Sweep

By Paul McCann

 

The chimney sweep came down the street

looking as black as your boot  

 

With brushes and sticks in his hand  

to clean your flue full of soot .

 

 

He rode his bike real steady like,

not many around like him  .

 

When he’d come in you’d see him grin ,

And straight to work he’d begin.

 

Attaching rods for chimney pods

and brushes to sweep it clean .

 

Down it would come, a job well done

and your soot no longer seen.

 

.

Certificate 12
Poem
poemsbypaulmccann
Spiritual
Historical Fiction

Comments

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Early in our married life, we were in a house belonging to a private school, and my husband borrowed their brushes to do the chimney at the beginning of a school holiday. The rods (or some of them) came down minus the brush. A neighbour came in to help. The tied a child's rake to the rods and pushed up. I think the rake shot out, but not the brush. And then they tied an elastic luggage-holder 'spider' that has big hooks and pushed that up — and the brush shot out! Relief, but much more soot in the living room than should have been!

We appreciated the work of chimney sweeps more then! Rhiannon

 

Submitted by mcscraic on

That's a great story . Thanks for sharing .

Chimney sweeps really earned their pay 

Kind regards 

Paul

 

Submitted by D G Moody on

This took me back; to when we still lived in a coal mining village, and we had cheap coal as a perk. But then we had the chimney sweep evry so often, and I now recall him attaching all his rods and blanketing off the fire places before starting work. 

Dougie Moody

Submitted by mcscraic on

Thanks Dougie .

Like you I've never forgotten what it was like to see a chimney sweep at work .

We had a few of them in my my village . They usually had a way to book a service either on a notebook hung outside their front door ir you could write a note and slip it in through their letterbox . 
One chimney sweep had a red light outside his house .

Nice to hear from you 

Kind regards 

Paul

 

 

Submitted by D G Moody on

Thanks Paul; and that smell of coal fires that still brings back memories; even though it was environmentally dodgy.

Dougie Moody