February 27, 2005

• dear me, I think my Clowne site will have to drop their shame list!

  
  

  Here is Sophie Lucy Morgan.

  
  

  Every writer has a child in them, I think poets more than others, it’s their view of looking to life. I am also a great mimic, when I had a children’s column in my paper I had children of my own, now I have grandchildren, and of course memories to find the voice of Sophie, and she’s easier for me than Tiffy to write-act.

  
  

  I have given Sophie her first prose-creation. Here, and as this is a poetry blog, I have added a poem.

  
  

  A story I wrote. It’s all a story, I didn’t have a cold, I saw no angel and I didn’t say anything to mummy like I did in the story. But she’s reading the story now!
  

  
  

  ________________________
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  “So” I said, “tell me a story about a girl
  

  
  

  A girl who was ill,
  

  
  

  Like me.”
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  He sat on my bed and put his finger to his mouth and hushed me.
  

  
  

  “Don’t let anyone else hear you child.” it, he,it sat on my bed and said “don’t let anyone else hear you child, if I fly away, I can’t get back.”
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  “Do not sigh
  

  
  

  As I sit on your bed,
  

  
  

  I’m not an evil man
  

  
  

  Just cos I’m dead.”
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  The angel gave his wings a flap and giggled. The angel knew he should have not have drank that bottle of fresh air, it made him go all weird, now why was he here?
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  “There was a child” he began, just like you.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  The angel tickled my tummy through my knightie, stranger-danger thoughts made him jump. He realised he should not have done that. “Talk but never touch!” he was told, but the angel had died when one of his children was the girl’s age, and he felt remorse for going off to battle against some stupid Scot called Wee Bonnie Charlie.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  The angel spoke “We won you know!”
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  “Sorry” I said, “won what?”
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  “Oh dear child” the ghost said, “it’s a long time since I visited a child, you could always hug them, they liked angels hugging them, if I was an angel LADY…?”
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  “You’re not!” I snapped. “You promised me a wish, my wish is a story about a girl like me and in verse!”
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  “There was this girl
  

  
  

  Just like you,
  

  
  

  Lived in a cottage
  

  
  

  Below a hill.”
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Her father looked for her,
  

  
  

  But he was a fool
  

  
  

  And left her all day
  

  
  

  Eating rancid gruel.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Whilst he pubbed
  

  
  

  On liquid grub…
  

  
  

  Do we HAVE to do it in rhyme
  

  
  

  It takes up too much time!”
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  I relented. “Ok, try prose.” I was tired and ill, and this angel was peeing me off! I sneezed over him.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  He slapped his face and took his head off and shook it to my amazement, but he done it comically so I wasn’t scared.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  “So, he left his child at home, and some bad men were about and so the angel sat on the bed and scared them away.”
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  I jumped.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  “I didn’t mean you were in danger, only the girl in the story! The angel scared the bad men away and they fell into a ditch and died of fright, cos to people who do see me, only special ones like you see me as angels, the rest see me, if at all, like a ghost!”
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  “Can I go to sleep?”
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  But he rambled on and I fell asleep, the angel was still talking when…
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  I woke up and it was morning, and my cold from last night was gone.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  “I saw an angel Mummy!” I said, “he told me a funny story, but I fell asleep, but I learnt one thing, he thinks like I, a lot of thoughts all entering my head the same time, none more important than any other except when someone is talking to me.”
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  —
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Sophie.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  P:S: So I wrote the above story about an angel who thinks like me, who finds it hard to grab the most important sensation or event out of so many.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  —
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Sophie Lucy Morgan. (Aged Ten.)

  
  

  
   

  
  

  —

  
  

  
  

  The snow that fell in the morning
  

  
  

  was gone by the time
  

  
  

  I arrived home from school.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  We never did make our snowman, Mummy;
  

  
  

  and after you had found
  

  
  

  a lovely carrot for it’s nose!
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  —
  

  
  

  Sophie Lucy Morgan (aged 10)
  

  
  

  —-

  
  

  (have aged Sophie, but will keep her aged ten. The post below was wrote two years ago when Sophie was eight.)
  

  Sophie Lucy Morgan (aged nine)

  
  

  
  

  
  

  All good ficticious children from tintin to Bart Simpson does not age, nor will Sophie. Fiction of course she is, though based on my own daughter Rachel (who herself is very clever and had poems published at 8, including in a Brownie magazine), in a way Sophie’s view of life is my own, because in reality I am the eternal child always at odds with the world.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Sophie’s two main friends is nine year old Emily, (a twin, and although Sophie and the other twin, Emma, does not get on very well, the three are often together:) and Elgar, a ten year old black boy whose brother is constantly in trouble with the police, and who himself smokes reefers.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  The other people in her life is her Mother, kind, thoughtful, loving, but a little too wrapped up in herself to understand her child, her four grand-parents, each one subjects of poems, the mother’s mother tries to bring up Sophie to be a little lady, not something the tom-boyish girl wants. Then there is her father and “HER” she sees every other weekend. “Her” or her father’s “bit of stuff” and Sophie hate each other’s guts, and doesn’t the reader of her poems know it!

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Another of her friends is the Catholic Priest who tries unsuccessfully to hide from the child and yet feels something for her, who, like all my personae (except Bob Smartass) is deep inside, very lonely. Despite her age and sex, Sophie is an alter girl and most things else in the church which is situated right next door to Sophie’s house.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Finally there is her school on some rough estate in Oxford (though not based on any actual estate). This school is like all RC schools full of religion and hyprocisy.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Only three of my personae are religious, The Rev. Tobias Trontby, Blinky-Head of the Sarahs’ and Sophie.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  For in a way, both The Rev Toby and Sophie see Jesus in the same light, far far removed from The Passion Of the Christ, more of “Away In The Manger”.

  • 8:39 pm
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