This was a first for Stamford Branch and probably for many other Branches – a poetry evening. Darren Rawnsley, our Youth & Schools member, is also a gifted poet and was the town Poet Laureate for 2012-13. On 25 July thirty or more of us gathered in the Stamford AFC clubroom for an evening of 'Poetry and a pint', which Darren helps to run at Stamford Arts Centre.

Darren’s poetry is heavily drawn from his roots in Bradford, the surrounding hills, and his early working life in the woollen mills there. He read a particularly sad poem, Revisited, on his bitter-sweet memories during a return visit to a former woollen mill years after it had closed. He also generated vivid impressions of the desert, from his RAF service at Al Kharj in Saudi Arabia, in his poem The Runner.

It was not all serious stuff however. He had us laughing at his tale of The Tick which landed on a cow – big mistake! – and he ended with us all singing along with him to My wife’s a cow. Darren enjoyed strong support from his friend, Richard Barter and also Joyce Burton who read a couple of his poems and then joined him in singing My Old Man.

A very successful evening which we must do again, when Darren has replenished his repertoire!