Allan Ahlberg - 5 Sept

Born in Croydon but brought up by his adopted parents in the Black Country town of Oldbury, Allan Ahlberg held jobs as a gravedigger, postman and plumbers mate before becoming a teacher. He taught for ten years before collaborating with his wife Janet on a series of much-loved, now classic childrens picture books.

Having a Baby, Collected Poems (2008).

The Clothes Horse and Other Stories (1987).

The Boyhood of Burglar Bill (2006).

Heard it in the Playground (1989).

The Boy Without a Name, Heard it in the Playground, extract (1989).

The Mighty Slide, extract (1988).

The Clothes Horse and Other Stories (1987).

The Bear Nobody Wanted (1992), 9.99.

In Friendly Matches (2001).

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY

Janet Ahlberg

Fritz Wegner

Charlotte Voake

Jessica Ahlberg

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First published by Viking 2013
Published in Penguin Books 2014

Text copyright Allan Ahlberg, 2013
Original illustrations copyright Jessica Ahlberg, 2013
All rights reserved

The acknowledgements on constitute an extension of this copyright page

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Cover illustrations by Jessica Ahlberg

ISBN: 978-0-241-96904-5

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the authors and publishers rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

If any part of the following mixture of truth and fiction strikes the reader as unconvincing, he has my permission to disregard it.

So Long, See You Tomorrow,
William Maxwell

JANET AHLBERG

Illustrations: from The Bear Nobody Wanted (1992)
from Peepo! (1981)
from The Clothes Horse and Other Stories (1987)

FRITZ WEGNER

Illustrations: from Heard it in the Playground (1989)
from Friendly Matches (2001)

CHARLOTTE VOAKE

Illustrations: from The Mighty Slide (1988)

JESSICA AHLBERG

Original illustrations published here for the first time: ,
, also endpaper

James Hogg extract from A Boys Song,

Sir John Millais Sir Isumbras at the Ford, . The Lady Lever Art Gallery; reproduced courtesy National Museums Liverpool

G. E. Breary The Bear Nobody Wanted (1944),

I came from Battersea

In 1938

Delivered by a steam train

Forty minutes late.

Not the Dogs Home, though.

My mother went to fetch me

By tram, then train

With Dad, as usual, working

Hopess Window Frames.

Or was it Dankss Boilers?

My mother had a shopping bag

Bootees, bottle, shawl

And knitting for the journey

Not much else at all.

A purse, I suppose, hat, glasses and such.

She struggled across London

Got lost near Waterloo

And came at last to the Orphanage

At twenty-five to two.

Early, even so, for a two oclock appointment.

They sat her in the corridor

Left her there till three

Then gave her a couple of documents

A form to sign and me.

She couldnt see to write. Mglasses needed wipers!

Back then to Paddington

Weather wet and mild

Brand-new mother

Second-hand child.

Good condition, though; one previous owner.

And Mother clutched her secret

On her lap

From all the other passengers

All the way back.

Dad, still in his overalls, was on the platform.

He squeezed us in a cuddle

Gave me a clumsy kiss

He smelled of wood shavings and oil

Mum specially remembered this.

And me? Asleep, apparently. Id had a busy day.

In the early years of my childhood there was a war going on. The odd bomb meant for Coventry sometimes fell on us. My mother made me a den under the kitchen table, a solid table, a nest also of cushions and blankets. Soft toys. Toast. A cup of drink. Its what I most remember, not the bombs or the craters even, into one of which on my tricycle at speed I one time tumbled, but that little secret place with its green tablecloth hanging down, velvet tassels and a fringe. And the sounds of the kitchen: cups, plates, conversation. And the light through the fringe. The green light.

This is a book of short pieces in verse and prose, an attempt to recover or otherwise conjure up a particular time (the 1940s), a particular Black Country town (Oldbury) and a particular childhood (mine). There is, I will confess, some unreliability here. I start with good intentions and a true memory day-old chicks, street lamps, a clip round the ear but soon, often as not, the fictional habit kicks in and I am led astray. One sentence lures me on to another, has the seeds of another in it, or is a template almost. Like knitting, that first row of stitches which sets up the rest. Or a rhyme reveals, or the need to avoid a rhyme reveals, some possibility. And I follow.

In The Richest Woman in the World () which I have just completed there is a man in the Co-op serving my mother. I give him an apron, which I know he had, and place a pencil behind his ear, which I can only say I would like him to have had. He looks better with a pencil, in my opinion, more convincing, businesslike. He can tot up my mothers bill with it. There again, its probably indelible. Yes, I think I detect a slight smudge now along his lower lip where hes been licking it. Like a young child, me, for instance (or you, for that matter), from those days, those remote, mysterious days. Eating liquorice.

I had a little bucket

Of brightly painted tin

Which I carried from the wash house