The only reason I admit why I write for children is that Fellpony asked us the question: “Why Are You Writing This?”

I stumbled into writing for children in this way:  About twelve years ago we were asked to take a Christmas poem to our local women’s group.  At the last minute I couldn’t find what I liked and was surprised that two were written very quickly.  I discovered I enjoyed writing them.  I just couldn’t stop and over the Christmas period I can’t remember whether the family had a Christmas meal or not, but about 50 poems appeared.  They were just tumbling out of me, and many were fun poems for children, much the same type of poem that I enjoy writing now.

Then, with the Christmas period behind me I became busy with other things and the poems just stayed in my book.  Perhaps God had other ideas.  Three years ago I injured my back and I changed my voluntary work and went into our local school to listen to  children, aged six years old read, as many retired people do.  I loved being with the children, of course, and mentioned to their teacher, when they were doing poetry, that I had written some children’s poems but never read them to children.  She asked the children:  “Would you like Mrs Whitehead to read you one of her poems next week?”  The chorused answer came back from the children:  “Yes please Mrs Whitehead”.   I read them my poem called “Mickledy-Me” who is a really naughty little invisible friend.  Before I read it I asked them:  “Do any of you have an invisible friend” and every child’s hand went up.  Not only that, they wanted me to listen to their various stories about them, and to know their names, but, of course I didn't have time.  Perhaps this is a subject that teachers could use for an essay!   So, it seemed, I had hit on a subject dear to their little hearts.  They loved the poem – well you could see by their faces that they did.  In fact one child asked me if I had written any more poems about Mickledy-Me.  I hadn’t.  So he said “What would happen if he came to our school?”  So next week I wrote “Mickledy-Me Goes to School” and we had fun because when he threw blue paint all over the teacher, we had to ask Mrs Maclean to cover her ears, and the children really laughed. 

The Ilkley Literature Festival has a Children’s Corner, and I offered to take it because I had lots of little followers by then who wanted it.  One little girl waylayed me to ask:  “Are you reading Mickledy-Me?”  I said “Would you like this?”  “Oh yes, please” and “Goodee” etc.  In fact this year, two years on, a little boy came up to me in the street and said:  “Do you remember me Mrs Whitehead?”  I did, certainly, because hadn’t I looked down on his sweet little face reading and thought “Oh, dear God may he never change into a horrible teenager one day”?    I said “Yes Richard, of course I do.”  He said “Could I read Mickledy-Me in the Poetry Corner please?”  And did he?  Yes, he did, of course.  He told the people who came:  “I remember Mrs Whitehead reading this in my class two years ago and it is my favourite poem.”  I have to say I felt a lump in my throat because I would like to think that these children enjoyed my poem as much as I enjoyed Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Lamplighter” and many others.  I couldn’t wait to get hold of these poems to read to my daughter when she was little, and I wonder if they will feel that they want to read “Mickledy-Me” to their children one day, as full of enthusiasm as I was.

When I went into the school for my hour a week, the children would come running up to me with the question “Have you written us a new poem?”  The teacher became a bit annoyed with them because they did have school work to do as well as listen to poems – what a shame!!! 

The following year I didn’t go into the school until November because my back was in such a sorry state that I couldn’t walk very well.  The children were just as enthusiastic about the poems, , only more so, if this was possible.  What with the National Curriculum and the inspectors coming into the school and having to get on with their work, they were missing out on their poems and four six -year old boys came up to me.  “Mrs Whitehead, is it possible for you to put your poems onto the internet so that we can access them at home as we don’t get much time for poetry at school?”  This request came more than once.  I asked my husband (the computer wizard) and he said “Yes”.  The answer went back to the school the next week.  “Ooooh goodee”.  Each week they were waiting to ask:  “Are the poems on the website yet”.  At the end of February 2006, the same question was quietly asked (so as not to annoy their teacher).  When I said “Yes” they all wanted to know the name of the website, but their teacher was in a state of agitation because they had to sort out their folders that lesson because next week the Ofsted Inspector was coming.  I just said quickly to them:  “I’ll tell your headmaster and he can tell you in a letter.”  One said:  “If we Google your name, will we find it?”  I said I didn’t know but perhaps.  I was going round from desk to desk helping them sort out their folders when, behind their teacher’s back I saw something beyond my reasoning.  On the whiteboard was my poem “Mickledy-Me”.  Not knowing too much about this then I whispered to those on my table:  “How has this happened?” and “If your teacher sees this I will be thrown out of the classroom.”  They said:  “There’s several of them round the corner on the computer and they’ve Googled your name and found the poem.”  You have to laugh.  I went surreptitiously round the corner and said:  “Get that off the screen.  Do you want me to be thrown out of the classroom and never allowed back again?” ha ha.  It went off quickly, but after school the counter went up and up on the website by – guess who.  Each week they came in with new subjects for poems. 

So I realized that the audience I wrote for enjoyed what I wrote, and that was important.  Last year I went into another school here each month and helped and encouraged the children with poetry.  It was not just a question of reading my poems but listening to theirs too.  The headmaster and I encouraged them to recite poetry with expression, not just in ones but in groups.  We did little dramas with the poems.

Having been a teacher (although I taught in FE Colleges), I thought it would help teachers if I added to my website lesson plans and ideas for bringing poetry to life in classes, quizzes and games for children etc.  I have also written articles for Primary Times and I have just (about an hour ago) received a letter from The Times Educational Supplement to say that an article I have written called “Christmas Poems – Let the Children Perform Them” will be in their magazine on 14th December.  See: 

http://www.whiteheadm.co.uk/html/childperform.html#childperform

I have written many of my poems as stories, which can be performed with various speakers, and one poem in particular, in the Children’s Section of this website:  “The Three Wise Men – A Christmas Drama-Poem” has been written especially for this purpose.  It’s small enough for a classroom drama where younger children can get the first step on the drama ladder but just in front of their immediate friends.  It is a drama for 9 children.  It looks as if it is proving popular with the teachers, as was the Autumn Visit.  Children had to write an autumn poem this year and I think the teachers thought this poem inspiring.  I do hope it was.

So, I inadvertently stumbled or tumbled  into writing poetry for children, led on by an enthusiastic group of youngsters.  I would think that you should have in mind some reason for writing what you write and know the audience you are writing for – that and asking God to lead you in the right direction. Ha ha.  It works for me.

I might add that I have put my own voice recording on each of the poems, and it was the children who asked me to do this for these reasons:  (a)  “We like to hear you reading”  (b) “It will help us with our reading because what you see in English is not what you say.”  (c)  “I can download your poems onto my ipod and listen to them when I go to bed,” and (d)  “My little brother likes your poems and he can’t read.”  I now find that ESL students from all over the world use my poems because they have the same problems. 

One Sunday afternoon in the summer an Email arrived from a  22 year old young man from Karachi.  He wrote: 

“You are a teacher so you are the right person who can provide
me proper piece of advice regarding imitating a particular accent. I am
interested to imitate a British accent -I know there are a lot of varities as
such there exists no standard british accent. I just want to speak Engish the
way Tony Blair speaks, crisp and clear, and easy to understand. I dont know
which accent he speaks in. Any clues?”

Then in another letter he said:

“You sound like older sister of Tony Blair. You speak
Engish with a clear accent. Imagine speaking with Andrew Flintoff's
accent(The Ashes's hero held in England). No one will understand you a bit. I
think he is from Lancashire. His accent is almost incomprehensible on my
ears. I need an interpretor for deciphering his accent.”

(An OLDER sister to Tony Blair!!! - Enough said!)

He wrote again and told me that his mother had died two years previously, and she had always read to him when he went to bed when he was a child.   So he told me that he was downloading my poems onto his ipod to listen to them when he went to bed because he missed his mother so much (and I guess I was a replacement mother). 

I’ve had lots of letters from young people using the poems – and I know I am going in the right direction when I’m writing, especially for the young because I enjoy it and they do too.  Hope that answers your question Fellpony. 

I would love to hear why others write what they do.