Thanks to UK Northern Rail for allowing us to show this video depicting poet laureate Simon Armitage’s poem, All Right?

This time of year can be a particularly lonely time. If you’re worried about someone, don’t forget to ask them if they are all right. It can make all the difference.

Video of the poem “All Right” by Simon Armitage, read by Mark Addy 
© Northern Railway

All Right?

It was all winter

no clouds, no leaves

the sky was all sky

It was all frost

and all the best stars were mirror ball bright.

Then I noticed this guy on the bridge

this one solitary guy

With a 10 yard, 20 yard, 50 yard stare in his eye

Looking onto the tracks

looking straight down the line

I’ve never been one for meddling

I don’t like to pry

but I wandered across

and heard myself saying

“All right?”

A train went past

… so whatever he said in reply

got atomised

Then he spun on his heels

and veered off into the night

and I slept all the better

for not just passing him by.

Come spring

Come shine

the station buttered with warm light

I saw him again

on the edge of platform 9 9 9

But he nodded and smiled

and silently mouthed,

“All right”

then jumped on a train and rode away into his life.

Simon Armitage