[John Whitworth]

I somehow suspect A A Milne will be in the mix somewhere. Now we are eight.

No. 2823: pet project

You are invited to submit a school essay or poem written at the age of eight by a well-known person, living or dead, entitled ‘My Pet’ (150 words/16 lines maximum). Please email entries, wherever possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 6 November.

[Brian Allgar]

I’d love to have a little pet,
A dog is what I’d rather.
I’d ask my Mother, but I bet
She’d just say ‘Ask your Father’.

My Father says I’ll have to wait
Until I’m quite grown-up.
“When you’re a Minister of State,
Then buy yourself a pup.”

I'd really like a dog that’s brown;
The white ones get too grubby.
He’ll have a rather doggy frown
And probably be chubby.

He’ll wear a collar every day
That I can tie a cord on,
And he’ll do everything I say.
I think I’ll call him ‘Gordon’.

[Susan McLean]

I had a goldfish in a bowl.
It acted bored, like me.
It swam around without a goal
and snuffed it rapidly.

I had a budgie in a cage.
It molted in despair.
It kicked off at an early age,
its small claws clutching air.

So, Mum and Dad, please grant my wish:
don’t buy a cat or pup
for me, no birds or sodding fish.
They all go belly up.


Can anyone guess who I am trying to imitate?

[Ann Drysdale]

Mam, we're playing funerals now?

[Chris O'Carroll]

Originally Posted by Susan McLean

I had a goldfish in a bowl.
It acted bored, like me.
It swam around without a goal
and snuffed it rapidly.

I had a budgie in a cage.
It molted in despair.
It kicked off at an early age,
its small claws clutching air.

So, Mum and Dad, please grant my wish:
don’t buy a cat or pup
for me, no birds or sodding fish.
They all go belly up.


Can anyone guess who I am trying to imitate?

Had you opted for a more fish-alliterative word in place of "sodding," I'd be sure that you were doing Larkin. I'm still kinda sure. The fixation on early death could be Housman's, but "bored, like me" looks like a Larkin clue.

[Susan McLean]

Yes, I was going for Larkin at eight. I wasn't sure he'd be up to the F-word at that age.

Susan

[John Whitworth]

I had never heard or heard of the f*** word nor the c*** word when I was eight years old. It was moving from North London to Edinburgh (where children had been f***ing and blinding from the cradle) what done it.

[basil ransome-davies]

My prep school was in north London (ish) & it was there I learned to be foul-mouthed. I still am. Proves the value of private fuckin' education.

[John Whitworth]

My Pet

My daddy's name is Hamilcar.
His beard is black and bushy,
He's awfully rich like Daddies are,
So life is very cushy.

He says, 'My dearest Hannibal,
My little marmoset,
What is your bestest animal?
I'll buy it for a pet.

Is it a camel with a hump,
An ostrich with a beak?'
I tell him, 'It's a Heffalump.
That is the pet I seek.

I want a HEFFALUMP, a HEFF-
A-LUMP with tusks and trunk
And not, unless you're mutt-and-jeff,
Those things you thought I thunk.

[Roger Slater]

MY DOGGIE
by Albert DeSalvo, a/k/a The Boston Strangler

My doggie has a doggie bowl.
My mommy lets me fill it.
Yet I don't want to feed my dog.
I'd much, much rather kill it.

I do not want to give it food.
I have a stick. I poke it.
And every night I dream a dream.
And in my dream, I choke it.

How lovely it would be if I
could grab it when it's napping,
then twist its head between my hands
to feel its neckbone snapping!