and fill it up.
Me and my brother –
we had a plan.
Not just one stocking
Not just two stockings
no – we emptied the chest of drawers
of every sock we could find
and laid them out on the end of the bed,
hanging from the window,
the door handle,
the lamp shade
and the mantelpiece –
we covered the place with socks.
Then we went to sleep.
I d-on’t know what the old bloke thought when he came
but he must have turned up and said:
‘Well – that little show doesn’t fool me,’
and he stuffed a few sweets in one sock
just one single solitary sock,
and left.
At least,
that’s what Mum and Dad
thought he did.
MRS TOWNSED
Every time I see Mrs Townsend
she says
O I remember you, you rascal
I can see it now
Your mum and dad was out
looking for you
you was only three
you had gone missing.
You know where they found you?
Halfway up the road
outside the methodist church
running along in your little vest
you didn’t have nothing else on
you had left home
with just your vest on
everything else open to the weather
can you imagine?
Well you would never think
of that to look at you now,
would you?
NO
EDDIE AND THE BIRITHDAY
When Eddie had his second birthday
he got lots of cards,
and he had a cake and all kinds of presents
and we sang Happy Birthday.
‘Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday, dear Eddie…’
and all that.
He liked that very much
So he goes:
‘More. Sing it again.’
So we sang it again.’
‘Happy Birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday, dear Eddie…’
and all that.
And he goes,
‘More. Sing it again.’
So we sang it again.
‘Happy birthday to you
da de da de da, dear Eddie
da de da to you…’
And he goes.
‘More. Sing it again.’
It felt like we sang Happy Birthday about
Two hundred and twenty-three times.
And the candles. On the cake.
He loved them.
‘Eddie, blow.’
He blew.
And the moment he blew it out
he wanted more.
‘More candle.’
So we light it.
‘More Eddie blow.’
Eddie blew.
‘More candle.’
We light.
‘More Eddie blow.’
‘More candle.’
That felt like two hundred and twenty-three times as well.
And he loved the cards.
Everyone who sent him a card
seemed to think he’d like one
with pictures of big fat animals.
Elephants and hippos.
He got about ten of them.
Imagine.
Your second birthday
and everyone sends you pictures of
hippopotamuses.
Maybe they think he is a hippo.
Anyway he had a nice birthday.
Next day he gets up
comes downstairs
and he looks round
and he goes,
‘More happy birfdy.’
So I go,
‘That was yesterday, Eddie.’
‘More happy birfdy.’
‘But it isn’t your birfdy – I mean birthday…’
‘More happy birfdy.’
Now, you don’t cross Eddie.
He has rages.
We call them wobblies.
‘Look out, he’s going to throw a wobbly!’
And the face starts going red,
the arms start going up and down,
the screaming starts winding up
he starts jumping up and down
and there he is –
throwing a wobbly.
So I thought,
‘We don’t want to have a wobbly over this one.’
So we started singing happy birthday all over again.
Two hundred and twenty-three times.
Then he says
‘More candles.’
‘We haven’t got any,’ we say
(Lies, of course, we had).
‘More candles…’
So out came the candles
and yes –
‘Eddie blow.’
He blew.
‘More candle.’
And off we go again –
Two hundred and twenty-three times.
And then he says,
‘Letters, More.’
Well, of course no one sent him any more,
so while I’m singing more happy birfdy’s,
my wife was stuffing all the cards
into envelopes and sticking them down.
So we hand over all his cards again
and out came all the hippopotamuses again.
So he’s very pleased.
And that’s how Eddie had two birthdays.
Lucky for us
he’d forgotten by the third day.
Maybe he thinks when you’re two you have two birthdays
and when you’re three you have three birthdays
and when you’re seventy-eight you…
PLATFORM
I’m standing on platform one
of Pinner station
at half past four.
Mum comes at ten to five.
When I wait for her
I watch the signals for the express trains change
I watch the lights change
I watch the trains going dark as they
come under the bridge.
I’m waiting for my mum.
I go and stand by the
glass case on the wall
where the Christian Science people
put a Bible for you to read.
It’s open and there are bits
of the page marked that you’re
supposed to read.
I don’t understand it.
I watch the woman in the sweety kiosk
serving people.
Mars Bar, bar of plain chocolate,
packet of chewing gum, Mars Bar, Kit Kat,
barley sugars.
Are you waiting for your mum again?
Yes.
I go and stand on the shiny floor of the waiting room
and look at the big dark benches. There’s a boiler in there.
They never light it.
Even in winter.
There are big advertisements that I read.
One says:
‘Children’s shoes have far to go.’
And a boy and girl are walking away
down a long long road to nowhere
with thick woods on both sides of them.
I’m not waiting for a train
I’m waiting for my mum.
At a quarter to
The Flying Scotsman Express Train comes through.
I stand back against the wall.
It’s the loudest thing I know.
The station goes dark,
I stop breathing
the coaches move so fast
you can’t see the people in them.
At ten to five
Mum’s there
The doors open
She’ll be in the second carriage,
she always is.
Daylight shines from behind her
so I can’t see her face
but I know it’s her –
Mum
I know it’s her
by her shape
and her bag
and her walk.
Have you been waiting long?
No.
You could have gone home, you know. You’ve got a key.
I like waiting for you.
It’s better than being at home on my own.
I suppose it is.
I point to the children
in the big advertisement
‘Children’s shoes have far to go.’
Where are they going, Mum?
I don’t know.
I hold Mum’s hand all the way home.
ON THE TRAIN
When you go on the train
and the line goes past the backs of houses in a town
you can see there’s thousands and thousands
of things going on;
someone’s washing up,
a baby’s crying,
someone’s shaving,
someone said, ‘Rubbish, I blame the government.’
someone tickled a dog
someone looked out the window
and saw this train
and saw me looking at her
and she thought,
‘There’s someone looking out the window
looking at me.’
But I’m only someone
looking out the window
looking at someone
looking out the window
looking at someone.
Then it’s all gone.
AUNTIE WINTERMIDDDLE
When I was seven I made up my mind:
I am going to prove
once and for all
there is no such person as Father Christmas.
I’ll stay up all night
and when he comes down the chimney
I’ll say,
‘There’s no such person as Father Christmas.’
– no –
I mean no one’ll come down the chimney
which will all go to show
that I’m right
and everyone else is wrong.
So that Christmas
the Christmas when I was seven
I went to bed
very very excited.
I lay in bed, my eyes wide open
staring up at the ceiling
staring at the door
staring at the fireplace
going,
‘I’m not going to go to sleep
I’m not going to go to sleep.’
I went on like that for ages
and ages, hours and hours
until suddenly I heard
a rustling sound.
It was coming from the fireplace.
A bit of soot fell into the fireplace.
I sat up in bed
and stared into the dark.
Then slowly there appeared
feet, legs, body
then a whole person.
‘Who is it?
Who is it?’
I called out in the dark.
No answer.
The shape moved across the room.
It tripped over my yellow dumper truck
that I had left there
just in case there was a Father Christmas
so he wouldn’t leave me another yellow
dumper truck.
Anyway –
it turned on the light.
I blinked.
It was a woman.
‘Hi,’ she says,
‘I’m Auntie Wintermiddle.’
‘Auntie Winterpiddle?’ I said.
‘No, Auntie Wintermiddle.’
‘What are you doing in my room,’ I said.
‘Well, Michael,’ she said,
‘I’ve come to give you your Wintermiddle presents.’
‘How do you know my name?’
‘I know everyone’s name,’ she said.
‘Blimey,’ I said.
‘What do you want?’ she said.
‘An Action Man,’ I said.
‘I haven’t got any dollies like that,’ she said.
‘Action Man isn’t a dolly,’ I said.
‘Well I haven’t got any Action Man dollies either.’
‘I want a gun,’ I said.
‘I haven’t got any guns,’ she said.
‘You’re useless,’ I said.
‘Am I?’ she said. ‘Watch this, then.’
Her fingers turned into felt-tips
and paint brushes
and she was up the walls
across the ceiling
drawing, scribbling, colouring.
She did pictures of tigers, aliens, roller-skaters,
trees, dragons, aeroplane cabins,
skeletons, people, moons.
Fantastic.
She wrote on the door:
Knock knock
who’s there?
Toodle
Toodle Who?
Toodle-oo? But you’ve only just arrived.
She wrote:
Father Christmas is a fat fool
above the fireplace
She wrote:
What goes snap, crackle, squeak squeak squeak?
Mice Crispies.
And she hung a giant paper sun
with a light inside it from the ceiling.
‘How about that?’ she said.
‘All right,’ I said.
‘Not so bad actually,
what else can you do?’
‘I can turn the world upside down. How about that?’
‘Like what?’ I said.
‘Follow me,’ she said.
And she took me to the window.
Pow! a flash went out from her hand.
Night turned to day
and the cars parked in the street
turned into buses,
all shapes, sizes and colours
covered all over with mad faces
winking and smiling.
There were no cars just these buses,
some the shape of giant tortoises
and giant tins of baked beans
giant feet and giant doughnuts.
Pow!
the room, my room
turned into a hall,
so big it looked as if all the children of the world
could fit in it.
I don’t suppose it was that big
but there were thousands of us
and we were all blowing up this
huge huge huge purple balloon,
we each had a bit to blow through
and we were blowing and blowing
and the balloon was getting bigger and bigger,
it was swelling up above our heads
and we were blowing and blowing
it was getting so big I thought it was
going to burst.
There we were, thousands and thousands of us
blowing and blowing
until I thought it really was going to burst
so I called out,
‘Stop, stop, stop.’
And in a flash everything did stop.
There was a grinding, smashing roar,
light turned to dark
the hall shrunk to a room – my room,
there was a sucking whooshing sound
and I saw Auntie Wintermiddle’s feet
disappearing up the chimney.
‘Come back, come back,’ I shouted.
‘Come back, Auntie.’
But there wasn’t a sound,
and so, tired and sad – I fell asleep.
In the morning
there were presents.
Dad said, ‘Look what Father Christmas brought you.’
‘Did he?�
�� I said.
‘You believe in the old Father Christmas story, don’t you?’
he said.
‘I know a better one,’ I said.
‘A better what?’ he said.
‘A better story,’ I said.
‘What’s that?’ said Mum.
‘Oh – never mind,’ I said.
But later that day
I went upstairs
and wrote underneath the mantelpiece
‘I love Auntiewinterpiddle
– no sorry –
Auntiewintermiddle
I’ll stay up for you next year.’
THE ITCH
If your hands get wet
in the washing-up water,
if they get covered in flour,
if you get grease or oil
all over your fingers,
if they land up in the mud,
wet grit, paint, or glue…
have you noticed
it’s just then
that you always get
a terrible itch
just inside your nose?
And you can try to
twitch your nose,
twist your nose,
squeeze your nose,
scratch it with your arm,
scrape your nose on
your shoulder
or press it
up against the wall,
but it’s no good.
You can’t get rid of
the itch.
It drives you so mad
you just have to let a
finger get at it.
And before you know
you’ve done it.
you’ve wiped a load of glue,
or oil,
or cold wet pastry
all over the end of your nose.
ORANGE JUICE
We get orange juice
delivered to our door
with the milk,
on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
We get one pint of milk
one carton of orange juice.
So,
one Monday morning
I go out there
and there’s one pint of milk
and
no orange.
So I go,
‘Damn – the milkman’s
forgotten to deliver the orange.
I love orange juice for breakfast.’
So on Tuesday,
I got up in time to meet the milkman
and I say to him,
‘Hey, you forgot to deliver the orange yesterday.’
‘No, I never,’ he said.
‘Afraid you did,’ I said.
‘I delivered your orange yesterday,’ he says.
‘Well it wasn’t there when I came
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