(A Contemporary Adaptation of Joseph Malins’ Poem, 1895)
Twas a town where the people with generous grace,
Would rush to a valley—a perilous place—
For there, from the cliffs that loomed cruelly steep,
The broken and battered were cast in a heap.
And always, the question arose with a thrill:
Why not build a strong fence at the top of the hill?
But voices of power, both hardened and grand,
Scoffed at such schemes with a wave of the hand.
“A fence? What folly! Why burden the cost?
When fine, shining ambulances handle the lost?
Let fate do its work, let the careless be warned,
We’ll mend up the broken and send them reformed.”
And so, down the valley, the wailing was heard,
While up on the heights, no action occurred.
For those who had power saw naught but their own,
And left the great cliff as a hazard well-known.
And daily, the rescue teams laboured in vain,
Gathering bodies, patching up pain.
Then one day, the people, their patience now thin,
Called for a council to put an end in.
A fence, they demanded, to guard young and old,
To keep all from falling, from stories retold.
But before they could build it, there came in a horde—
A circle of scholars the leaders adored.
“Your fence is a folly!” the economists cried,
“It hampers the markets and turns back the tide!
A fence means less rescue, less medicine sold,
Less labour from workers who heal from the cold.
Consider the loss to the wealth we create—
If people stay healthy, the growth will stagnate!”
“Think of the doctors, the sellers of pills,
The builders of ambulances down in the hills!
If no one lies broken, what jobs will remain?
A fence is disaster—a drag on the gain!
For sickness and suffering fuel the machine,
And progress is measured in all that we glean!”
Then came the ICB, cautious and prim,
With a ledger of figures, their outlook was grim.
“We see your concern, but let’s not be rash,
A fence is ambitious—it gobbles up cash!
Now ordered to halve both our budget and crew,
Our capacity’s strained; there’s little we can do.”
Then NHSE, with its targets and charts,
Declared that prevention was noble—in parts.
“But now, as we face our own dissolution,
Resources are scarce for any solution.
We’d love to support this—but must be precise,
Could you show that the fence would come in on price?”
Then Parliament rose with a thunderous tone,
Debating the fence from its leather and stone.
One faction declared it a liberal disgrace,
While another saw votes in a well-guarded place.
A fence was proposed—but at what, they implored?
Should it be owned or be privately stored?
Then up stood the Ministers, stern and severe,
“We sympathise, truly, but let’s make this clear:
There’s Putin to watch, and the East is in flames,
Trump stokes the fire with chaos and games.
With Gaza, Sudan, and Ukraine in the fight,
Our spending must focus on military might!
The Congo is bleeding, the world is a mess,
So now’s not the time for domestic excess!
Warfare, not welfare, is where we must be—
The fences can wait for democracy’s fee!”
A silence then fell, so heavy, so stark,
As the people beheld the world in the dark.
Was this how they lived? Was this what they’d built?
A kingdom of commerce, indifferent to guilt?
Where suffering served as the gears of the trade,
And care was a burden when profits were weighed?
Then rose an old sage with a staff in her hand,
Who spoke of the earth and the fate of the land.
“This cliff is no mere thing of rock and of stone,
It is forged by the greed that has ruled from the throne.
It is fuelled by the wealth that is hoarded and kept,
While the rivers run foul, and the forests have wept.”
And slowly, the people, their minds opened wide,
Saw how the valley was made by their pride.
The wounds of the fallen, the storms and the flood,
Were one in the same—born from power and blood.
And so, in a tide that could not be restrained,
The people arose and their thinking was changed.
No longer they trusted in hands that delay,
Nor waited for leaders to lead them astray.
They built not just fences, but ladders and schools,
They questioned the laws, they challenged the rules.
They tended the rivers, they planted the trees,
They wove social justice like roots in the breeze.
And up on the cliff where the careless once fell,
Now flourished a village where fairness could dwell.
For no longer they laboured just treating the pain,
They tackled the causes—again and again.
And far down the valley, where ambulances rolled,
Now silence and peace spoke a tale to be told.
For those once forgotten, once cast to the dust,
Had risen together in hope and in trust.
And the town, once resigned to the wounds of the steep,
Had learned that prevention runs broader—and deep.
So remember this tale when the crisis is great,
When leaders still pander and action comes late.
For fences alone will not justice fulfil—
You must tear down the scaffold that stands on the hill.