Back to School with MRS GREN
Back to school! How much have you forgotten in the school holidays? What about your Science? Can you remember the seven activities of a living thing? Have you ever met Mrs Gren? I bet you have! Let her help you with your revision …
MRS GREN* © Celia Warren 2010
Up the hill climbs MRS GREN,
Stepping like a mother hen.
She deeply breathes the summer air;
Feels it stirring in her hair,
Every gentle rippling blow,
As if it urged her hair to grow,
Like the baby in her tum
(For MRS GREN will soon be Mum).
She stops to gaze at green and blue;
No human life (no human loo!)
Far from the city throng and rush
She squats, at last, behind a bush.
Then, soon, atop the hill she lies,
Staring at the cloudless skies,
Then down upon the distant glen,
And eats some cake, does MRS GREN.
*As every school-child learns, MRS GREN is a mnemonic through which to remember the seven attributes of a living thing: Movement, Respiration, Sensitivity, Growth, Reproduction, Excretion, Nutrition.
My Wooden Dog
I wrote this poem some years ago from my imagination, but yesterday I met the dog himself — or one of his distant relatives! There he was walking through grass as high as his tummy at Blackdown Rings, Devon, an old iron-age settlement, later to become a Norman motte and bailey. Perhaps he, like the dwelling-site, is hundreds and thousands of years old.
MY WOODEN DOG
His ears are carved mahogany,
His polished nose is oak,
His coat is sleek, it’s made of teak,
The grain, so smooth to stroke.
He never lifts his leg at trees
When I take him to the park,
He thinks they are his family
And barks at their … bark!
My wooden dog is my best friend,
He loves to run and play.
Splinter, come! Splinter, sit!
Good boy, Splinter – stay!
© Celia Warren
Summer Lupins
Available in September (or pre-order now)
Teachers – I’m proud to announce my 12th title in Scholastic‘s popular Read & Respond primary school series, a book providing everything you need to share Michael Morpurgo’s superb novel The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips with your class. The book offers speaking and listening activities, extracts for shared reading, guided reading notes, writing projects, plot, character and setting activities, differentiation advice and assessment guidance.
It was a joy to read the book, and a delight to prepare lesson plans around this modern story of the second world war evacuation of villages in the South Hams. It was especially interesting for me, as I live in the very area in which the story, with its true event background, is set. Indeed, our house bears to this day indentations in one wall from flying bullets, caused during the very incidents described. The evacuation, in 1944, of all residents, was in preparation for the D-Day Landings in Normandy to help free the French from occupation by Hitler. American troops used Slapton Sands to practise manoeuvres and, sadly, lost many brave soldiers in the process, even before the planned D-Day landings took place.
Children – if you can’t wait to read this book at school – the original story by Michael Morpurgo would make a great holiday read, so look out for it in your local library or bookshop. It’s exciting, moving, funny in places and sad in others, with a very satisfying ending. (Your mums and dads will probably want to borrow the book after you: it’s a great read!)
To pre-order its accompanying Read and Respond book, available from September this year, visit Scholastic’s online shop: http://shop.scholastic.co.uk/series/2
Celia’s Virtual Toy Museum
Not content with one blog, I have created a second – with the above name! The idea came to me on a recent visit to London’s Pollock’s Toy Museum. Having kept a number of toys from my own childhood, and some from my children’s, it occured to me that there were the makings of a nostalgic Virtual Toy Museum of the 20th Century. My mother, born in 1920, still has the teddy bear she was given as a baby, so the site may delve yet further back through the last century.
At the moment, I’ve only planted the seeds of the museum. As and when time permits I shall add more items – from dolls to Dinky toys and more. Feel free to visit and see how it grows. Do add comments if the site brings back memories of your childhood. I might even create a page dedicated to visitors’ favourite toys …
Meanwhile, pop and have a look at the site’s very, very early stages at http://celiasvirtualtoymuseum.wordpress.com/
Foyle Young Poets of the Year Competition 2010
Wow, we’re already into the second week of July. Schools will be breaking up soon! Where’s the first half of the year gone?
If you are aged between 11 and 17 and enjoy writing poetry, now’s your chance to enter the most prestigious poetry writing contest in the UK for youngsters. Entry is free and there’s no limit to the length of your poem, but it must be your own original work. There’s not long till the deadline though, so start writing or redrafting NOW!
“You can enter poems on any theme, and of any length, and in any shape you like. Entry is completely free and you can enter as many poems as you like, however we do advise that you concentrate on drafting and redrafting your poems. Remember, quality is more important than quantity. Poems should be in English.”
Visit The National Poetry Society for further details. CLOSING DATE 31 July 2010.
a frog in my throat!
A Frog in my Throat © Celia Warren 2010
The mug of the Midlands was fogging my breath
And clogging my Lincolnshire lungs.
The frogs in my throat plagued me almost to death
With their teasingly ticklish tongues.
I coughed and I retched
In my efforts to fetch out
The frogs, so’s to tell them to hop it,
But all I achieved
As my poor shoulders heaved
Was everyone telling me, “Stop it!”
Now I live by the sea in green Devon,
Where the air is as pure as God’s heaven,
But it seems, when I moved from the Midlands, my frog
Moved south-westwards also, my footsteps to dog –
My footsteps, my intakes of every fresh breath –
The frogs in my throat may yet plague me to death.
Ahem, ahem!
Talking of names …
X-RAY FISH
Girls can have such pretty names, 
Priscilla, say, or Petra,
My name is beautiful as well:
I’m called Pristella Tetra.
If your name’s plain, perhaps you wish
You were, like me, an X-ray fish.
© Celia Warren 2010
What’s in a name?
The other day, copies of my most recently published book flopped through the letter box. (They flopped as they’re paperback; quite a while since a tome of mine clunked its hardback route to the doormat!) I opened the package eagerly – I still get a buzz from holding a new book in my hands, even after having 60 or 70 titles in print. Instant reaction: great – yet another tome in the popular Scholastic Read & Respond series. To the teachers who use it in their classrooms, and to the children who enjoy the lessons, it will make not one iota of difference that my name is misspelt on the front cover. (I blame the magic wand of Jill Murphy’s The Worst Witch, subject of the lesson plans!) But it made me realise how proprietorial are my feelings about my name. I think most people would feel the same.
I have always had a love-hate relationship with my first name. As an infant learning to write at school, I did not appreciate how good it is to have so few letters to form and sequence, but I am grateful retrospectively. It’s also easier to fit short names on to forms. But it’s a name that I still often have to spell for people, despite its age, and its appearance in Shakespeare, many songs old and modern, including Ben Jonson’s ‘To Celia’ (Drink to me only with thine eyes …). The name is quite ‘pretty’, I think, and my mother told me when I was young that it meant ‘heavenly one’ – that’s a difficult title to live up to, but a nice thought! The name was suggested by my mother’s school-friend, and settled upon almost by default. It’s a rather grown-up name for a little tot, and my parents called me ‘Posy’ till I was about four (my middle name being Rosemary). I don’t remember being called Posy, but when I was about starting-school-age, I do remember asking, “Why do I sing ‘a pocket full of Mes’ in Ring-a-ring-o’-roses?” and hearing the explanation.
Friends at primary school (except close friends) could not spell my name. I’d get Christmas cards addressed to Seelyer and such-like. Problems were not confined to children: one official, soon after my birth, wrote ‘Alice’ on a form and had to be corrected. He was obviously dyslexic, before the term had a name; it must have made his clerical job a nightmare! I’ve had people try and tell me the name is short for Cecilia. No, it isn’t. They are two separate names. I am frequently called Cynthia and Sylvia. Wrong again. At secondary school I gained the nickname of ‘Cess’ (I won’t go into the route to this end result – suffice it to say, it wasn’t flattering, but my friends were not intending to be unkind.) What else have I been called over the years? Diminutives and variations, not made through ignorance, but through fun and affection – Ceelie (grates a bit, though kindly meant!), Cee (well, why not?), Carelia (plain daft!), Weel (via Ceelie-Weelie – probably my favourite from long ago!) and, lately, I seem to be Ceels here and there. Celia is not an easy name to abbreviate, but that was why my parents liked it; my brother and sister and I all had names that couldn’t be shortened, but people find a way round that minor obstacle, and I do quite like Ceels. Reminds me of those lovely, gentle, whiskery dog-faced sea creatures, and sounds far less formal and severe than my Christian name.
Today my 90-year-old mother had a bill through the post for minor work done by a South Devon service to the elderly and infirm. In addition to the bill was a covering letter. It explained that although they were still ‘Care and Repair’ they were changing their name to ‘Independent Futures’. I laughed. How sad. They’re losing a nifty name, rhymingly memorable, to something pretty meaningless. Their kind and efficient employees would not be doing the work if their customers had ‘independent futures’, not to mention ‘presents’. Is the name more PC? If so, why? They do care. They do repair. Perhaps they are afraid their old name implied that their customers were falling apart? I don’t think so, but, if that were the case, the old name ‘Care and Repair’ was spot on!
May Bank Holiday
The bank has gone on holiday.
He’s taken lots of money.
He’s visiting a river bank –
A land of milk and honey
(Or so he’s read in brochures,
Though they can exaggerate)
But soon he sees some dandelions
Whose seeds proliferate,
And on the yellow flowers the bees
Take pollen for their honey;
The stems leak milky fluid;
This bank’s rich, if not with money,
Then rich with flowers and grasses;
With toadstools, toads and frogs.
What fun the holidaying bank
Is having as he trogs
Along the path beside the stream,
Enjoying his May day trek!
Tomorrow he’ll be back in town
For you to cash your cheque.
© Celia Warren
