Her military mummy can do all the right voices - by Fran Hill

Do you remember being read to when you were a child? I suspect for some, that process kick started a passion for books and for writing. Those bedtime stories were perhaps the catalyst for you being here, right now, reading this blog post.

So, I think we can agree that reading to children is important.

I wrote a poem recently for an arts exhibition at the request of an ex-pupil now at university. The students organised the exhibition in support of a small charity called United Through Reading. It helps keep military parents on tour in touch with their young children via books, reading to them on video. Of course, now, more and more mothers are in the armed forces, and this idea was the inspiration for my poem. Quite a balancing act, being a mother and a soldier, I would have thought.

Her military mummy can do all the right voices

Her military mummy can do all the right voices.

The Stepmother. Guttural and bitter-black.

The Ugly Sisters. As sneaky as the Reaper.

Sweet-tongued, like a gift? That’s Cinders.

The Fairy Godmother trills as if on wings.

Silky chocolate melt. Here comes the Prince.

‘Whose is this golden slipper?’ he smiles.

Her military mummy can do all the right actions.

Point a Stepmother’s bilious finger.

Screw up a Sister face into a gargoyle.

Sweep in like summer, wand charged with gowns.

Polka as feathers do, up diamond steps.

Wrap a proud-prince arm around a bare shoulder.

Rap on a village door, slipper on purple cushion.

When her mummy points a brown-booted foot

and sings, ‘Try the slipper on me,’ that’s

her favourite part, and she’d giggle for it again

but for the blast that sends the screen fizzing.