Timothy Winters Timothy Winters comes to school With eyes as wide as a football-pool,

2. Timothy Winters Timothy Winters comes to school With eyes as wide as a football-pool, Ears like bombs and teeth like splinters: A blitz of a boy is Timothy Winters. His belly is white, his neck is dark, And his hair is an exclamation-mark. His clothes are enough to scare a crow And through his britches the blue winds blow. When teacher talks he won’t hear a word And he shoots down dead the arithmetic bird, He licks the patterns off his plate And he’s not even heard of the Welfare State. Timothy Winters has bloody feet And he lives in a house on Suez Street, He sleeps in a sack on the kitchen floor And they say there aren’t boys like him any more. Old Man Winters likes his beer And his missus ran off with a bombardier, Grandma sits in the grate with a gin And Timothy’s dosed with an aspirin. The Welfare Worker lies awake But the law’s as tricky as a ten-foot snake, So Timothy Winters drinks his cup And slowly goes on growing up. At Morning Prayers the Master helves For children less fortunate than ourselves, And the loudest response in the room is when Timothy Winters roars ‘Amen!’ So come one angel, come on ten: Timothy Winters says ‘Amen’ Amen amenamenamen.’ Timothy Winters , Lord. Amen Charles Causley Tich Miller Tich Miller wore glasses with elastoplast-pink frames and had one foot three sizes larger than the other. When they picked teams for outdoor games she and I were always the last two left standing by the wire-mesh fence. We avoided one another’s eyes, stooping, perhaps, to re-tie a shoelace, or affecting interest in the flight of some fortunate bird, and pretended not to hear the urgent conference: ‘Have Tubby!’ ‘No, no, have Tich!’ Usually they chose me, the lesser dud, and she lolloped, unselected, to the back of the other team. At eleven we went to different schools. In time I learned to get my own back, sneering at hockey-players who couldn’t spell. Tich died when she was twelve. • Wendy Cope

3. Parents’ Sayings You’re old enough to wash your own socks. He’s not coming through that door again, I can tell you. If it’s true what your teacher said then you can say goodbye to that coat we were going to get you. You do it and like it. When did you last wash your feet? Why don’t you do a Saturday job? The answer’s NO. The biscuits are for everyone – OK? Don’t mind me, I’m just your mother. You haven’t ridden that bike of yours for years. You try and leave home and I’ll chuck you out on your ear. You’re certainly not going to put that up on any wall in this house. Do you know what a Hoover is? You can pay for the next phone bill. If you don’t like this caff – find another one. Just ‘cos he’s doing biology he thinks he’s going to be a brain surgeon. Do you remember that lovely Christmas when he was six? Michael Rosen Super Sunburn super sunburn is what my brother called the bright right handprints that my Dad would add to my arms and legs when I was bad he thought up the title one night while he was eating my supper regular burns were handed out for shouting at my sister when she failed to collect the rent after I had landed on one of her properties in Monopoly but the biggest attack was for when my Dad said he was fed up to the back teeth with me and I pointed out that he never had any back teeth my brother said that the marks I received on this occasion were excellent • JohHegley

4. My Parents Kept me from Children who were Rough My parents kept me from children who were rough And who threw words like stones and who wore torn clothes. Their thighs showed through rags. They ran in the street And climbed cliffs and stripped by the country streams. I feared more than tigers their muscles like iron And their jerking hands and their knees tight on my arms. I feared the salt coarse pointing of those boys Who copied my lisp behind me on the road. They were lithe, they sprang out behind hedges Like dogs to bark at our world. They threw mud And I looked another way, pretending to smile. I longed to forgive them, yet they never smiled. Stephen Spender Friends I fear it’s very wrong of me, And yet I must admit, When someone offers friendship I want the whole of it. I don’t want everybody else To share my friends with me. At least, I want one special one, Who, indisputably Likes me much more than all the rest, Who’s always on my side, Who never cares what others say, Who lets me come and hide Within his shadow, in his house – It doesn’t matter where – Who lets me simply be myself, Who’s always, always there • Elizabeth Jennings

5. The Wise Old Timer When I was your age Kids were different Only spoke when spoken to Only swore when alone, We went to school Then to work All in a day, Kids nowadays don’t understand. When I was your age Kids were kids, We could not Ask for more, Choose our meals, Debate with parents Enter without knocking, Kids nowadays don’t behave. When I was your age I was working the pit Fighting the war With coal And the Germans, To make sure kids nowadays Get freedom Nuclear power And the pill, When I was your age I weren’t like you. Kids now talk about Their rights Their space Their music Their interests Their problems They cry aloud They have Their own ideas They even Use the phone, Meat used to be a luxury Now I see tiny vegetarians, Every bloody where. We made our toys • Now they want money, We went to the cinema They have cameras, What next I ask What next. When we were told to do We done, And when we did, We did it properly, They do anything now, It’s called expression, When we were told to We did, We did not Ask why. Kids nowadays Get away with murder. When I was your age Kids were different, Roses were red Violets were blue Poor but fed We struggled too, Baths were special Sweets were treats Homework was done And he who wore trousers Ruled. Who wears the trousers now? When you are my age You’ll see kids in a different light And you’ll understand How kids are different now, Kids are not like kids anymore, They’re like little Human Beings. Benjamin Zephaniah

6. The Seven Ages of Man All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms. And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the canon’s mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lin’d, With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, His youthful hose well sav’d, a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans tast, sans everything. William Shakespeare

7. Your Dad Did What? Where they have been, if they have been away, or what they’ve done at home, if they have not – you make them write about the holiday. One writes My Dad did. What? Your Dad did what? That’s not a sentence. Never mind the bell. We stay behind until the work is done. You count their words (you who can count and spell); All the assignments are complete bar one and though this boy seems bright, that one is his. He says he’s finished, doesn’t want to add Anything, hands it in just as it is. No change. My Dad did. What? What did his dad? You find the ‘E’ you gave him as you sort Through reams of what this girl did, what that lad did, And read the line again, just one ‘e’ short: This holiday was horrible. My Dad did. Sophie Hannah Gust Becos I Cud Not Spel Gust becos I cud not spel It did not mean I was daft When the boys in school red my riting Some of them laffed. But now I am the dictator They have to rite like me Utherwise they cannot pas Ther GCSE Some of the girls were ok But those who laffed a lot Have al been rownded up And havrecintly bean shot The teecher who corrected my speling As not been shot at al But four the last fifteen howers As bean standing up against a wal. He has to stand ther until he can spel Figgymisgrugifooniyn the rite way I think he will stand ther forever I just inventid it today. Brian Patten

8. Mid-Term Break I sat all morning in the college sick bayCounting bells knelling classes to a close.At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home.In the porch I met my father crying--He had always taken funerals in his stride--And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pramWhen I came in, and I was embarrassedBy old men standing up to shake my handAnd tell me they were "sorry for my trouble,"Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,Away at school, as my mother held my handIn hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.At ten o'clock the ambulance arrivedWith the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.Next morning I went up into the room. SnowdropsAnd candles soothed the bedside; I saw himFor the first time in six weeks. Paler now,Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.A four foot box, a foot for every year. Seamus Heaney