The author describes their father's prized possession - a lamp stand made from a piece of shrapnel that nearly killed their father during a mortar attack in Northern Ireland. Their father pried the twisted metal fragment from a brick wall and brought it home, later carving a wooden base and wiring in a light bulb so it could function as a lamp. For years the author did not know the true origins of the unusual lamp, but their mother later revealed the story of how their father narrowly escaped death from the piece of shrapnel. The lamp serves as a reminder of how fragile life is and evokes feelings of melancholy, pride and relief in the author.

1. A Prized Possession
Descriptive Writing Coursework
English IGCSE

2. What objects would you rescue if your house
was about to burn down?

3. Is there a relationship between monetary value
and the things you treasure most?

4. Can a value be placed on all objects?

5. How might you go about describing prized
possession?

6. Physical
attributes
Why you Prized Its origins
and how you
value it came to
possession possess it
What it
makes you
think about,
remember
and feel

7. Physical Attributes
Size
Shape
Colour
Texture
Smell
Taste
Weight
Function

8. Origins
How did you come to possess it?
Who gave it to you?
When did you receive it?
Where were you when you received it?
Why did you come to possess it?

9. Associations
What does the object make you think about?
What do you feel about the object?
What memories do you associate with it?

10. Value
Why do you value this object?
What does it mean to you?

11. Does a photograph accurately ‘describe’ an
object?

13. Can a painting capture aspects of an object that
a photograph cannot?

16. Your task is to describe your object as a word
painting rather than a photograph!

17. Figurative language
Adjectives to support nouns
Multi-sensory appeal
Concrete details
Varied sentence length & structures
Interesting vocabulary
Personal & imaginative content
Atmospheric
Controlled framing

18. Controlled framing
• Close up description of attributes
• Place object in context (time and place)
• Origins of the object
• What it makes you think and feel and remember
• Why you value the object.

19. Example text: The Lampstand

20. For much of my early childhood, nestled in one corner
of my father's study, there stood a squat and rather
ugly table lamp. It was the 1970s and the fashion of the
day was for small, cheap tubular shades in orange and
other fiery tones. The shade bore no tassels and
hovered over the base which was an object of much
mystery to me. It was fashioned in metal and was the
size of two bunched fists, one atop the other with a
hole drilled through the centre where the flex fed into
the bulb. It was shaped like a broken heart, nestled
above the jagged legs of a robotic tarantula and its
entire surface was jagged and barbed like some strange
alien cactus.

21. Its appearance was in no way beautified by its colour;
the lamp stand was a mass of rusty browns and greens.
It was a brutal modern art sculpture and very much out
of place in my family’s home. For years I had no idea of
its origins and, like so many things in childhood, I
stopped noticing it after a while and it blended into the
world of objects around me.

22. One afternoon in late November when I had come
home from university for a weekend, I was sat on the
windowsill, watching rivulets of rain criss-crossing their
way down the study window when my gaze was drawn
once again to the curious spiked fingers of the lamp
stand. My father was once again serving an extended
tour with his Regiment overseas and my mum was
wearing a brave face while she waited for his return in
the New Year.

23. She had just bought me a welcome, steaming mug
of tea and noticed me staring at the lamp. She
joined me in my vigil and I noticed that she was
shuddering while her face took on a haunted
expression. I reached out for the mug which
betrayed her trembling hand and asked her what
was wrong. What she told me meant that I would
never again look at that lamp in the same way.

24. The violently twisted metal of the stand was not as I
have assumed, a rather tasteless piece of art, but was
instead a 2 kg shard of shrapnel that had come close to
killing my father when he was serving in Northern
Ireland during the mid-1970s. Apparently, dad was
kneeling beside a brick wall, his rifle cocked in his arm
as he attempted to radio his position to HQ when the
air above him suddenly shrieked venomously and he
was showered in red dust and chips of terracotta as the
bricks all around him rained down debris.

25. An IRA mortar ambush had taken place and had my
father remained standing just a few moments longer,
the red hot missile would have torn through his body
and killed him outright. By fate, or sheer luck, he had
escaped that grisly end and, once he had caught his
breath, he took his bayonet, prised the savage
fragment from the wall, and carried it back to base
before, in due course, bringing it home.

26. My father has never been one to tell war stories; his
time in service is always something he's protected my
sister and I from and so it's not surprising that growing
up, I never learned of the lamp’s real identity. He
quietly carved a wooden base from a piece of oak,
wired in the bulb and the lump of shrapnel sat in a
corner of his study as a reminder that life is fragile and
very precious.

27. That strangest of lamps is still in my parents’ house,
and I often find myself hypnotised by its blade blistered
surface; it evokes in me an odd mix of melancholy,
pride and relief. Had that missile cut its way in a slightly
more downward angle, or had my father not crouched
to make his radio call, I would have grown up without
him. But he did crouch, and there are few sights I gain
more pleasure from than watching dad nestled in his
armchair, reading a favourite book by warm lamplight.