The Power Of Poetry
They said the house was haunted,
But he laughed at them and said "tut! tut!
I've never heard such tittle-tattle
As ghosts that groan and chains that rattle
And just to prove I'm in the right
Please leave me here to spend the night."
They winked absurdly, tried to smother
Their ignorant laughter,
Nudged each other
And left him just as dusk was falling
With a hunchback moon
and screech-owls calling.
These are the first two verses of a poem I learned to recite at primary school . It was in an anthology called, I think, Rhythm & Rhyme. The title was Two's Company but I have no idea who wrote it and, despite extensive internet searches, I can't track down a copy of it.
To this day, however, I can still spout several verses of that poem and, because of its spooky theme, I used to do this during family car journeys - usually as we were driving at night through woodland or past graveyards. Don't fret, my children are over the nightmares now.
I was thinking about this today when I heard Austin Lafferty talk to Fred MacAulay about his role as a judge in a Â鶹Éç poetry competition for schoolchildren. That culminates in a special programme on Â鶹Éç 2 tonight. Austin, who is best known for his legal know-how, said that listening to children's performances was a lot more interesting than an afternoon of conveyancing.
"But then, " he added, " anything is better than an afternoon of conveyancing."
He also managed to squeeze in a story about his own childhood and told Fred that he was a very shy little boy until the day his English teacher allowed him to get up on a stage and recite a poem.
"Something just clicked," said Austin and the shyness was gone.
The Â鶹Éç, meanwhile, is in the middle of a massive poetry season and I really recommend you to look at this terrific website. There is also Â鶹Éç Scotland's growing archive of Burns poetry as recited by some of Scotland best-known voices.
And if anyone can help me track down a copy of Two's Company I would be very grateful. I might have been getrting the words wrong for the past three decades.
POSTSCRIPT
Amazing. Steve Letford has tracked down the poem. It was written by Raymond Wilson.
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