In the poem he imagines his parents as they were when they were young. His father is wearing a tweed suit, and his dog Jack is with him. His mother has spread out a cloth on the grass for a picnic. She pours tea out of a vacum flask (a Thermos) and milk from a bottle. She sets out plates and cups for the picnic. She shades her eyes with her hand and looks towards her son. His father spins a stone so that it bounces on the surface of the stream. They wave to their son and call to him to cross over the stream to them.

　　Charles Causley wrote this poem when he was an old man. He is of course imagining his own death – crossing over the stream to join his parents. He says in the last line of the poem, “I had not thought that it would be like this.”

　　If you go to the podcast website (http://www.listen-to-english.com/) you will find a link to the text of the poem. You can then click on the audio button to hear Charles Causley himself reading it.

　　Note : In one of the lines of the poem, it says “She pours milk straight from an old H P Sauce bottle”. HP Sauce is a brown-coloured sauce that some people pour on their chips. It is one of the reasons why English food is despised throughout the civilised world. HP Sauce is made here in Birmingham. Sadly, the HP sauce factory will soon close. Production is to be transferred to the Netherlands.