Private School News

Thanks from the Palace for A Special Poem

It was in 1924, first in the pages of Punch magazine, then by the end of the year with the publication of “When We Were Very Young” that local writer A.A.Milne achieved literary immortality with poems such as “The King’s Breakfast”, “If I were King” and “Buckingham Palace”. The latter with the memorable lines:“Do you think the King knows all about me?”
“Sure to, dear, but it’s time for tea”.

Now nine-year-old Harriet Miller has made sure the Queen knows all about her. The Stoke Brunswick school pupil has written her own poem about the monarch and sent it to the Queen together with a handmade card. In response she has received a grateful letter of thanks from Lady Richenda Elton, the Queen’s Lady-in-Waiting. One presumes the Queen is “much too busy a-signing things” to write herself.

Harriett’s poem focuses on the Queen constantly being in the public eye and being photographed continuously. It echoes Milne’s line:“I wouldn’t be King for a hundred pounds,”
as it begins:
“Some times I just would not like to be queen,
All the time people with their cameras staring over me,
I would say if I am the queen
‘You have to obey, go away’”

Someone may pip her to the post but Harriet is well on course to become our first Lady Poet Laureat