How poet Martin puts up his dooks and laughs his way through depression …

My good friend, The Dook, is one of the funniest, wittiest blokes I know.

He once drove more than a hundred miles with his mum to do stand-up to help injured soldiers at a little village pub in Staffordshire.

His name is Martin ‘Dook’ Ward and, dare I say it – he’s a stand-up guy.

I am proud to know him and to have been his mate for more than a decade.

We’ve had some laughs along the way with our mate Andrew ‘The Foz’ Foster. Foz is a giant of a madman, brilliant and hysterically funny and one of the North of England’s most accomplished chefs!

We used to go ghost hunting together … I can hear you say ‘you must be joking!’

But no we weren’t … we’d decided that if we could prove the existence of ghosts, then we could ultimately prove the existence of God.

Now that was a challenge!

Anyway, Martin ‘The Dook’ Ward, Andrew ‘The Foz’ Foster and Leigh ‘The Hack’ Banks went about it together with serious intent. We sat on the top of a hill at midnight regularly – Rue Hill it was called – because some very strange things were going on up there. We’d seen the Village-of-the-Damnders gathering there wearing nothing but their flash-lights and dancing round some very weird stones.

We camped in the ruins of a 19^th century cottage by the Shropshire Union Canal and tried to contact a young flower seller who, in the very early part of the 20^th century was driven out of the strange little village of Woodseaves because she had the mark of the Devil on her face … a harelip.

There was actually an international film made about her and her lover Kester Woodseaves in 1989, Precious Bane

We also uncovered the probable truth about the Vicar of Knightly, High Offley and other hamlets and villages near Rue Hill. He hanged himself in his Manse after being hounded by his parishioners who accused him of being a paedophile. The police, the church and his colleagues confirmed he had never been charged, had never been interviewed and had never ever been guilty – although still today some claim they were his victims.

But they would never come forward and talk about it, discuss it. Share it. The man of God may still today be their own personal demon.

And so to Martin’s own personal demon. Like so many of us he suffers with depression. He is brave. He fights it all the time and most of the time he is successful.

But sometimes, like so many he goes under and flounders.

Very quickly though, he comes back, starts telling jokes, winding people up on social media and making podcasts from his car to rival Peter Kay.

Recently, he sent me these moving and ultimately inspiring poems. Neither have titles but if you have ever suffered anxiety and depression they are worth reading.

Martin now tries to help sufferers. Good on him.

And thank you to The Dook and The Foz for being my mates.

Darkness falls across the land,

I no longer see your smile.

That of which once came to light,

Now appears to be no more.

The world we came to love has turned to rock,

The seas are all dried up.

The winds are fiery like furnace heat,

To hot for fragile human skin.

I feel my body changing,

But not like seasons – they are no more.

I feel a shuffle on this mortal coil,

I know that it’s my time.

I take one look at what I once knew,

And now I see you in the distance.

The girl I knew was in fact,

The Reaper in disguise.

She’s here to take to me to a place,

That I have never known.

Will it be like what we’re told,

Or just a re run of what was before.

Hell is not a mythical place,

It’s somewhere in which we know.

It’s in our heads

It’s on this earth.

We live in it every day.

I wrote this more than two years ago and never shared it, ’til now. Hope you like it …

For the hands of time move on,

as I sit and ponder

what was and what could have been.

My goal in life is to see happiness on faces

But in the mirror it does not show.

For everyday I meet my goal,

when internal feelings do not glow.

I may not speak, when my mind runs wild.

But the words I write, speak in volume.

I want people to smile,

I want people to be happy.

The hands of time move on,

they show no sign of fatigue.

Yet my mind is damaged and my time is broken

Is this the end I see?

Could it really be nigh?

For the bell has rung, my last order is upon.

I’m weary, I’m broken,

I’m down and I’m used.

I need to find my happiness out of the darkness i am prisoned.

Listen to these word, take note of what I write.

For happiness is key, for all to be free.

#poetry #depression #art #survival #inspiration #ghosts #ruehill #staffordshire #shropshireunioncanal