When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Like lots of other bloggers here on WordPress today, I have no direct answer. Yes, we understand it is a daily ‘prompt’ and not a question, as such. But my mind was completely empty when I searched round for ambitions from childhood. Lucky are those who had them and achieved them. That must be quite something!

Instead, in this space I shall write down a poem. It was in a collection for children, published in1924, by the legendary AA Milne…..

Halfway down the stairs

is a stair

where I sit.

There isn’t any

other stair

quite like it.

I’m not at the bottom

i’m not at the top;

so this is the stair

where I always stop.

Halfway up the stairs

isn’t up

and it isn’t down.

It isn’t in the nursery,

it isn’t in the town.

And all sorts of funny thoughts

run round my head,

it isn’t really anywhere!

It’s somewhere else instead!

*****In this poem the child finds a sense of escape on this particular stair, which exists in liminal space between familiar and unknown.

******* ‘ I saw a mouse’ is from a song recorded in 1965 by Ronnie Hilton called ‘ A Windmill in Old Amsterdam. It was written by Ted Dicks and Miles Ridge.