The Poetry of Arthur F Mylam
Profile
Now approaching the age of 82, I have been writing poetry since my teenage years. I was educated at Eton Porny School, near Windsor and left at the age of 14 to begin working life in engineering. Our extended family lived in a village near the River Thames, upstream from Windsor. A small Primitive Methodist Chapel, standing just a short distance from our home, became the centre of our lives. My father wrote poetry and it was he who inspired me to begin writing. My favourite poet became J. H. B. Peel, whose book “Time To Go” went with me during the Second World War, when I was posted to India with the First Battalion the Somerset Light Infantry. Incidentally, this battalion was the last to leave India when independence from Britain was granted. Later in life I married and raised four children. After a few years we moved away from the Home Counties and began life anew in Cornwall, where we have spent the last 40 years. I carried on with my engineering work at night and ran a smallholding by day. Most of my poetry has been inspired by nature and the countryside. In recent years memories of my childhood have provided a major theme for my work, but I find that almost anything can spark the muse. Once a month I try to join a group of poets who meet in Truro Library, Cornwall, to read their own work and that of others, and to discuss it. Several of my poems have been published, mainly in the United States, and some are available on the Internet.
