This Run is For You- poem

Commissioned by the Great North Run for it’s 40th anniversary and featured in it’s BBC1 coverage of the race.

This Run Is For You 

The doorstep clappers 

the calm, the flappers,

the delivery drivers,

the solitude thrivers, 

the sourdough makers,

the banana bread bakers,

those who kept their distance

and those who went too far,

those who built some Lego,

their strength, relationships, a bar,

those who saw their whole lives collapse,

those who healed, those relapsed 

This run,

this run is for you

The hand holders, doctors, nurses,

indefatigable carers,

the new dog owners, the lost aloners,

the duvet coat wearers,

the toilet roll hoarders,

the new wild swimmers and paddle boarders,

the first time Zoomers,

the “You’re on mute”rs 

the repairers of bodies and computers,

the unsung NHS and supermarket staff,

the ones who said you’ve got to laugh,

the ones who thought it was like flu,

the ones who did not make it through

This run,

this run is for you.

The folk who built cairns on Whitley Bay beach,

the folk who travelled deserted streets to teach,

the shouters at the Daily Briefing,

those who let their sadness out

those who kept their grief in

the food bank givers and receivers,

the conspiracy theorists, the news believers.

the box-set bingers,

the stoics, whingers,

the D.I.Y dyers, the self-cutting fringers,

this run, 

this run is for you.

The ventilated, the medicated, the vaccinated,

the pickers and the packers,

the marshals, ushers, queue makers,

undertakers, volunteer jabbers,

the radio presenters who kept us company 

through the endless night,

my 84 year old step mum Rosemary 

who went when the time was right

my 44 year old friend Lisa 

who was taken far too soon 

those who stared at empty skies, 

quiet roads, their phone,

their love, the moon

The pebble-painters, rainbow displayers,

daily walkers, Animal Crossing players,

home-schoolers with all those endless worksheets,

emulators of Captain Tom’s endurance feats,

the pavement cyclists, the huffing joggers,

the involuntarily celibate, the illicit snoggers,

the rule benders,

the rule-keepers, the weird dreamers, 

the restless sleepers,

the “I’m just holding in a scream” ers,

the shielding, stuck,the quarantiners,

The ones who thought that this would pass

the ones who felt it was forever,

those miles, those miles, those endless miles,

we got through this together,

this run,

this run is for you,