‘How we envy the infant McGoughs tucked up in bed.
Night after night of magical word-juggling at the hands of a consummate craftsman.
How lucky they were, how grateful they must feel.’
The Signal Award
Sadly, you weren’t around when I was a child.
In wartime, with blackouts and nightly bombings,
the printed word was rationed, and there was little time
for ill-fitting glass slippers and transvestite wolves.
Sadly, my own books weren’t around either.
How proud Mother would have felt reading
my stories to me, as I joined in the exciting bits
and quickly learned the poems off by heart.
Because I write for children and often perform
with apparent enthusiasm in front of young audiences,
people assume I enjoyed reading to my own kids,
the bedroom aglow with lilting reassurance.
Alas, bedtime stories, I let you down. Grimm’s the word.
I yawned my way through the classics. Boring swiftly
of fables and fairy tales I would leave out great chunks.
‘Once upon a time they lived happily ever after. The end.’
I blame the war and the clash of opening times and bedtimes.
One eye on the smiling Thomas the Tank Engine clock,
‘Gosh, is that the quality time? Goodnight, sleep tight.’
Kiss, kiss, and Daddy is down the stairs and off to the pub.
So inept was I, so famously bad, that when the kids
were still making a noise long after lights out
my wife would shout upstairs, ‘Now go to sleep
or your father will come up and read some of his poems.’
We could hear the groaning as they burrowed
beneath the duvets. ‘Oh no, not another night
of magical word-juggling at the hands
of a consummate craftsman.’ Then silence.