Wee Nasties and More...

As part of the first Inverclyde Festival of Heritage, Magic Torch will be launching a childrens book supported by Heritage Lottery Fund Scotland. It's a poem intended to introduce younger readers to some of the myths and legends of Inverclyde.

You can get Wee Nasties, written by myself and illustrated by Mhairi Robertson at The Dutch Gable House on Thursday 16 May. It will also be available for free download via amazon later in the month.

Here's a recording of Wee Nasties and some other silly childrens poems...



Here's a few draft chapters from Tin Jimmy, the other locally based childrens book I'm working on.

And here's some of Mhairi's wonderful sketches for the project, which will be on display with other original artwork from the book at The Dutch Gable House from 16 - 19 May and again later in the month...

could this be the infamous gourock monster?

Greenock's most controversial son...the pirate Captain Kidd...

Have your fortune told by the Port Glasgow Mermaid...

Trolltown

Scary Troll by Andy Lee
(probably slightly scarier than the Trolls in this poem,
but pretty cool all the same)

Calabrig’s a sad wee town,
It always seems to rain.
But even on a sunny day
There’s folk there who complain.
It’s not that they’re bad people,
It’s just they’ve lost control,
Because the whole of Calabrig
Is full of grumpy trolls.

There’s trolls on every corner,
There’s trolls in swimming pools,
They stand in queues at bus stops,
Or glaring outside schools.
If sunshine ever happens,
If it’s a bluesky day.
They grumble trollish mumbles
To turn the sky to grey.
“No fun today.” the trolls all say
“So don’t you even try.
Nothing good can happen here.”
And I think we all know why.

Wee Molly lived in Calabrig,
She’d had enough of moans,
She’d had enough of monsters,
And all their grumps and groans.
Molly went on troll patrol
And watched the trolls all day.
She came up with a brilliant plan
To make them go away.
She got all her friends to help her
And they dug some big dark holes.
Big enough, and dark enough,
To push down lots of trolls.

Then (this was the clever bit)
They put up a big tent
And invited all the trolls in town
To a Monster Truck event.
Now trolls love Monster Truck stunts
So they all came down to see,
And everyone got tickets,
Then complained that they were free.

Molly opened up the tent
And in stomped all the trolls,
They moaned about the seating
Then all fell down the holes.

“Help us out!” they grumpled,
“We’ve got completely stuck.”
Molly smiled and laughed and said,
“Oh dear. What rotten luck.”
All the people in the town
Came down to see the trap,
And everyone was happy
And gave Molly a big clap.
Big walls got built around the holes,
A sign said “Do not feed.”
But they threw in lots of homework
And magazines to read.

It does still rain in Calabrig,
You don’t often see the sun
But on the whole, without the trolls
The town is much more fun.

Santa's Little Werewolves

Wee bit of festive fun. Just finished it this week.
A Christmas card from me and my wee family.

Merry Christmas!

A Bit of The Moon!

This was the first Christmas poem I wrote for my children. It accompanied a genuine purchase of lunar property. I believe land is now also available on Mars, assuming of course you are prepared to take it by force from the martians. Anyway, I still have all the documentation, and am assuming that this land purchase is legally binding and therefore when we eventually move into terraforming we'll be quids in. Check out some cool Christmas in Space photoshoppings here..


What should I get you for Christmas?

A new rattle? A carved silver spoon?

Never mind a new toy, you’re a lucky wee boy

I got you a bit of the moon!

I could’ve got you a big woolly mammoth

Or a hunting hat made from raccoon.

But there’ll be no fur for you young sir

I’ve got you a bit of the moon.

I could’ve got you a trip on a pirate ship

On the second last fortnight in June.

But no treasure yet, no parrots for pets,

See I’ve got you a bit of the moon.

How about a Tibetan safari?

In a marvellous hot air balloon?

But we’ll see yeti later, Kung Fu monks can just wait,

Cos I’ve got you a bit of the moon!

And maybe one day, you’ll fly away

To the sea of tranquillity.

You’ll build a wee home inside of a dome

And we’ll fly up to your house for tea.

National Poetry Day - Dad's Time Machine

To celebrate National Poetry Day, poems across all the blogs...

The theme for National Poetry Day is actually "Games", this poem is one I wrote for my wee boy Connor a few years ago now...just silly.

“Look!” said Dad
“Everyone come and see,
It’s my fantastic, wonderful
Time machine!”

And it had
Wheels that went whoosh,
And springs that went ping,
Ten levers for pulling
And a bell that went bing.
And a big round blue button
That when pressed it, went pop
And right at the top
Going tick tock
A clock.

“We could go back to last Christmas
And meet old Saint Nick
We can fly on to next Thursday
Come on! Let’s go! Quick!"

So we all jumped in and the clock went
BONG!
And dad said “Oh no!
I’ve set the time wrong.
It’s not going to take us
To meet Santa Claus
We’re going right back to see
Dinosaurs!”

The wheels went whoosh.
The springs went ping.
The lights all went out
We could not see a thing.
And we shuddered
And shoogled.
We went in, out and round.
We wibbled
And wobbled
We went up, under and down.

Then..a big BUMP.
We stopped
With a thump.
All the lights came on again
And a roaring made us
Jump.

Out of the trees came
A big T-Rex!
With sharp shiny teeth
Wearing huge purple specs.

Down from the sky came
A pteranadon!
Flapping his wings
Which had pink mittens on.

Over the hill came
A triceratops!
With big pointy horns
And polkadot socks.

And they all stood around
With their horns, wings and teeth
And dad said “Hello!
Would you all like some sweets?”

We counted out sweeties.
One. Two. Three.
There were some for the dinosaurs
And some left for me.

Then we all said goodbye
To our dinosaur friends.
The clock went BONG
We were off again!