Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Well I was too old by the time they came into my life.
Being a War Baby, I’d been quite happy with a home-made
                                                                                          wooden
dog on wheels, a second-hand, hand-knitted Kangaroo with a Joey
                                                                                                    in
her pouch, even a rag doll called Mimi; my parents must have
named her because I wasn’t big on opera back then, or else it was
the first thing I’d said: Me Me Me. And I can’t even remember her
face.

To get a doll and pram at eight was ridiculous really. I was up trees
or off wandering with the dogs, building dens, peeing in unusual
places and learning to spit and I spent a lot of time playing Tarzan or
Farmer Farmer, Riallyo, Film Stars and Blocky One Two Three, in
the street with the other kids.

That doll had eyes that opened, then closed when you laid her 
                                                                                             down.
She didn’t have real hair, just brown ridges in her plastic head but
the rest of her was soft rubber. Her fingers and toes even had the
imprint of tiny nails in them.

That year, my brother got a pedal car for his birthday, a
camouflaged tin jeep. I was green with envy and too big to fit in it.
All I could do was push him, usually too fast and once he fell out.
I would have loved a pedal car or a big Mobo rocking horse. 
                                                                                            Instead
I had Mary and the blue pram.

One day, this lad Brian Salmon, kept shouting and being really
stupid outside our garden. I told him to shut up, or he’d waken my
baby...

Well he wouldn’t, so I climbed over the fence and bit him, really
hard on his upper arm. He ran home screaming and I ran off in the
other direction to hide in the long grass. A big lad from the next
street, Peter Mays it was, he hit me on the head with a shovel, I 
                                                                                               can’t
remember why, territorial I suppose.

It made no difference to my Dad, he thrashed me anyway. After
that, I bit Mary’s fingers instead but it wasn’t the same.