3. • Born on the 9 November 1937, Roger
McGough was not interested in poems when
he was schooling. He only studied them
because it was part of the
curriculum. However, he had a Physics
teacher who recited poetry during Physics
class. He started enjoying poetry.
4. • When he became a teacher in Liverpool, he
himself recited the poems to his students. He
realised that he was interested in poetry
because his pupils enjoyed them very
much. That carved out his career as a poet
and he tried out the poems he had written in
class.
• Now, he has written over 50 poetry books for
both adults and children. He has also written
fiction books for children, some of which
introduce the children to poetry.
5. • His awards include:
~Signal Poetry Award (1984 & 1999)
~BAFTA(British Academy of Film and
Television Arts) (1985)
~Cholmondeley Award (1999)
and many more...
• His award-winning productions include:
~Sky in the Pie
~Kurt, Mungo, BP and Me
~Bad, Bad Cats
6. ORGANIZATION OF THE POEM
• The poem consists of three stanzas
• There are no rhyme or regular rhythm.
7. SUMMARY
• The author places himself inside the head of a
young child who has just been dropped off by
his mother in the playground of a city school
on his very first day. It is an experience that
this reviewer remembers vividly after 54
years, and no doubt the same is true of the
vast majority of readers of this poem, which is
why they will find themselves having instant
rapport with the sentiments expressed by
McGough.
8. • The child has clearly been told what to expect,
but the words used mean little to him without
explanation, and his mother has either not
thought this necessary or he has only half
understood them. He therefore gets confused
and lets his imagination run away with him.
Coupled with these strange words and
concepts are the experiences of the moment
that are also baffling, confusing and slightly
scary.
9. • The poem conveys these feelings and
emotions very forcefully with its free-verse
form in which the three stanzas hang together
loosely and the child’s stream of
consciousness can ramble on and then be
suddenly pulled back as a new thought strikes
him.
10. DEFINITION
The very first line expresses childhood exaggeration and
wordplay:
• “A millionbillionwillion miles from home”
~and this is followed by the child’s literal interpretation
of what he has been told:
• “Waiting for the bell to go. (To go where?)”
~He now becomes aware of something scary in the
form of other, older, children:
• “Why are they all so big, other children?
So noisy? So much at home they
Must have been born in uniform.”
11. ~He immediately sees them as something alien
and not like him. They also display alienation
towards him in that they must have:
• “Spent the years inventing games
That don't let me in. Games
That are rough, that swallow you up.”
~ McGough, who was a schoolteacher in the
1960s, is aware that, to a 5-year-old child, a 6-
year-old is a potential threat, and that any child
who is not in their first year at any school will
look down on those children who are and reject
them as unworthy companions.
12. ~Being alone and rejected, the child now looks
around him and his attention is taken by the
railings that surround the playground. The
second stanza begins:
• “And the railings.
All around, the railings.
Are they to keep out wolves and monsters?
Things that carry off and eat children?
Things you don't take sweets from?
Perhaps they're to stop us getting out
Running away from the lessins.”
13. ~He sees them first as being a protection from
outside threats, which leads his imagination
down a fresh path in which “wolves and
monsters” from bedtime stories are associated
with his parents’ admonitions not to take sweets
from strangers. There is an interesting link from
the first stanza in that his fear of being
“swallowed up” has been transferred to a new
threat that can “eat” him.
~However, he then wonders if these railings are
not prison bars designed to prevent his escape
from other monsters that he should fear even
more, namely the “lessins” that he has been told
to expect.
14. • “What does a lessin look like?
Sounds small and slimy.
They keep them in the glassrooms.
Whole rooms made out of glass. Imagine.”
~Without the necessary understanding,
concepts such as “lesson” and “classroom”
belong in the fantasy world of the child’s vivid
imagination. McGough understands this well,
and he reminds the reader that this was how
he or she would have responded when they
were that age.
15. • The third stanza begins with another sudden
shift, this time back to the child himself:
• “I wish I could remember my name
Mummy said it would come in useful.
Like wellies. When there's puddles.
Yellowwellies. I wish she was here.”
~His mind switches back to the certainties in his
life, particularly his mother who only left him a
few minutes before but whom he misses already.
The mention of his pet name for his wellington
boots, his “yellowwellies”, is enough to bring back
his fear of the unknown and his desire for the
comfort of his mother’s presence.
16. ~However, the poem ends on a more positive
note, because another word he has been
given is “teacher”, and he knows that a
teacher is not a monster even if he is unsure
precisely what a teacher does:
• “I think my name is sewn on somewhere
Perhaps the teacher will read it for me.
Tea-cher. The one who makes the tea.”
17. • It is a nice touch on McGough’s part to end
the poem with another childish
misunderstanding, as well as the appreciation
that many young children do not know their
own name, having not had occasion to use
their surname in their life up to this point.
• The reader is therefore left with the
realization that, when the bell goes in a few
minutes time, the child’s life is going to take a
dramatic surge forward from being a child of a
parent, living at home, to one among many
pupils under the care of a teacher.
18. • There are few rites of passage in a young
person’s life that are more disruptive than
this, and yet it is not a theme that has had
much attention from adult writers, apart from
Roger McGough, that is.
19. THEME
The innocent ignorance, misunderstandings and
insecurities of a child on his/ her first day at
school.
The child notes the appearance of the other
children, the isolation of being left out of games(
possibly because he/ she is either shy/ starting
late as the “ new kid”), railings around the
school, his/ her nervousness at being addressed
by the teacher.
20. FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
Imaginary of Sight- Whole rooms made out of glass.
Repetition: And the railings.
All around, the railings.
Simile: Like wellies
Hyperbole: Millionbillionwillion- Channels the
ignorance and imagination of a child whose home
seems lost and so far away.
Symbol : Tea-cher. The one who makes the tea.
