Remember as a toddler

How you discovered building blocks,

Finger-painted Mollie

And plastacined your frocks;

That strawberry jam was pretty

Mixed with butter on some bread

And ‘though lampshades made lights pretty,

They looked better on your head.

Remember as you grew up

The stories you were read.

You’d point to all the pictures,

Dream of princes once in bed.

Mother’d teach you how to spell

And recite nursery rhymes.

That brightly coloured clock face

That helped you tell the time.

Remember in the classroom

The short stories you would write;

‘Bout Sue & John & Grandpa

And the time you made that kite.

How the teacher made you giggle

And you were always up to tricks

How you learnt of verse and poetry

And played with limericks.

Remember in the sixth form

How you envied others arts;

Made excuses that their futures

Were living in the past.

Your attempts to accept fashion

‘Though you hated all the styles

Your experiments with make-up

Adolescent ways to hide that smile

Remember on that birthday

Gift ideas were being sought

And as much to make a statement

Asked for Chopin to be bought

Expeditions into classics

Breaking teenage mould

At the time the music grated

But it was ‘in’ to be thought old.

Remember that first soiree

Friends discussing theatre days

They didn’t care much for ‘Chekov’,

Nor ‘Shaw’ or ‘Miller’ plays

You bluffed your way through dinner

With agreements and guffaws

Then hurried to buy ‘Time Out’

As you’d never been before.

So remember, now you’re looking,

For that man to share your life.

He should paint, at least like Rembrandt

And as Dickens must he write.

‘Have the fashion sense of Gucci,

Hum in the bath to Bach,

And scribe billet-doux like Shakespeare

In all his greeting cards