Poetry by Clare Best

A plaque on the side of a farm building by Whitehouse Farm tells of the death in 1953 of a young Canadian airman. The plaque was apparently unveiled by the Lincolnshire Aircraft Recovery Group on the 50th anniversary of the young man's death.

Airman

Flying Officer Ray Bédard, aged 25, of 439 Squadron RCAF was flying from RAF North Luffenham in a Canadair Sabre MK2 on 23 June 1953. He broke from formation and was killed after bailing out while his aircraft was in a steep dive. The plane crashed in a field by Whitehouse Farm near Woodlands.

There's still the geometry
of lanes and dykes and hedges,
a spirit-level horizon. East, the North Sea
sheet-metal smooth to the sun,
west, a thousand fields beyond Long Tankins

hundreds of nameless shades of green.
Now, as then, an invisible skylark
rehearses, rehearses. A marsh harrier
glides low over wheat, drops on a vole.
Hares lie unblinking in hollows.