Little Jim, Polesworth

(The Collier's Dying Child)

Thatched and timbered house known as Little Jim's Cottage, Polesworth. 1950s | Warwickshire County Record Office reference PH 269/4
Thatched and timbered house known as Little Jim's Cottage, Polesworth. 1950s.
Warwickshire County Record Office reference PH 269/4
Little Jim's cottage, Polesworth, in a state of dereliction. December 1970. | Warwickshire County Record Office reference PH108/3
Little Jim's cottage, Polesworth, in a state of dereliction. December 1970.
Warwickshire County Record Office reference PH108/3

Little Jim’s cottage is no longer there (not altogether surprising, when looking at the photo from 1970) but the cottage, and Jim himself, is immortalised in poetry:

The cottage was a thatch’d one,
The outside old and mean,
Yet everything within that cot
Was wondrous neat and clean.

The night was dark and stormy,
The wind was howling wild;
A patient mother knelt beside
The death bed of her child.

You can tell by the verse where this is going. We have poetic staples such as the pathetic fallacy – the weather being dark and stormy going some way to accentuating the misery of Jim’s death. Naturally, the father opens the cottage door a moment too late, and misses his son’s passing.

With hearts bowed down with sadness
They humbly ask of Him,
In heaven, once more to meet again,
Their own poor Little Jim.

Now, modern day poetry might suggest a clash of the rather sprightly, jovial rhyming couplets and the subject matter, but it’s as well to remember that this is folk poetry, made to be remembered and recounted orally – the couplets help with remembering.

Speaking of remembering… does anybody remember Little Jim’s cottage? Can they add anything? Do please comment below.

If you’d like to read the full poem, follow this link.

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