Follow the Donkey

In 2025, Buckinghamshire Council received funding from Great Weston Railway (GWR) as part of their Customer and Community Improvement Fund, to highlight the story of the Marlow to Bourne End railway line, known as ‘The Marlow Donkey’. This small route had a big impact on the area, contributing to its history and development.

As part of the project, the Council collaborated with local artist and designer Nicola Metcalfe and poet Helen Bowell to gather memories, stories, and creative responses to the railway and surrounding areas from local community groups.

Nicola and Helen worked with families at Bourne End Community Library, young people aged 5 to 11 and 12 to 16 at Brighter Futures Marlow, older adults at the Princes Centre in Bourne End and Dementia Action Marlow, and community art group Art Xtra.

The community’s artwork and writing has contributed to a beautifully illustrated walking and rail trail, as well as appearing in temporary exhibitions in Marlow and Bourne End.

This poetry anthology showcases the group and individual poems created as part of the project, as well as a poem curated by Helen which draws upon words and ideas from the community groups.

With some groups, Helen led activities around kennings, which are poems with Viking roots, that try to describe things in inventive ways to help you see those things afresh.

Some common modern kennings are ‘sky-scraper’ (a kenning for a tall building) or ‘tree-hugger’ (an environmentalist). Can you figure out what the ‘whale’s road’ or ‘heaven’s candle’ might be?

One way, though not the only way, to make up your own kennings is to bring two words together add adding ‘-er’ to the end of the second word. For instance, ‘faithful wheeler’ or ‘track plodder’ are two kennings the community groups came up with.

Helen also led activities remembering different train journeys with groups to create polyvocal poems (poems told by many voices together), as well as asking the difficult question, why is it called the Marlow Donkey and inviting groups to be as imaginative as possible. After all, in a poem, you can say something as silly or outlandish as you want and your reader will picture it. So why not have some fun?

This project was generously supported by Great Western Railway’s Customer and Community Improvement Fund.