Pet project

In Competition 2823 you were invited to submit a school essay or poem written at the age of eight by a well-known person, living or dead, entitled ‘My Pet’ .

Those of you who chose to step into the childhood shoes of well-known writers faced the tricky challenge of pulling off an element of pastiche while at the same time producing something that could plausibly have been written by an eight-year-old. Emily Dickinson, a famously precocious child, was a popular choice.

Gordon Gwilliams’s entry revealed the stirrings of educational-reformist zeal in the young Michael Gove, while Richard Hayes’s brought to life Russell Brand, budding Narcissus. I also liked Susan McLean’s already-jaundiced Boy Larkin.

The winners take £25 each. Max Ross scoops the extra fiver.

O’ a’ the beasties in ma hoose
The one I love’s a bonnie moose.
I caught him stealing bits o’ bread.
Now I make sure that he’s well fed.
He used tae run when I cam near
But I would tell him: ‘Dinna fear’
And now I think he understands
He winna suffer frae ma hands.
I’m just a kiddie, so is he,
He’s wee and timid, just like me,
But I’m his brother and his mate,
We dinna ken what lies in wait.
Ma faither laughs whene’er I fret
If something happens tae my pet.
‘Ah, Rabbie, son,’ he’ll aye exclaim,
‘A moose will never bring ye fame’
Max Ross/Robert Burns
 
I wish I was my bulldog.
He’s good and gruff and grim.
He won’t be bossed or bullied.
I wish I was like him.
He’s been like that for ever,
Well, since he was a pup,
When he has something that he wants
He’ll never give it up.
He’d be a brilliant leader
And win a million fights
If I was like my bulldog
I’d put the world to rights.
I’d love to have his toughness,
A stern mouth and chin
And then I’d shout to all the world
‘We’re NEVER giving in!’
Frank McDonald/Winston Churchill
 
My pet is a dog that my family calls Grip, but he is known as Hu by the fairies that live in our garden and Growrg by the wicked wolves.