For Gillian Morris

4 July 2026

You were always Head Girl at the library
Your knowledge both broad-brush and deep
You presided in solitary splendour
Your readers were rarely asleep
The shelves sat well-dusted and ready
For all that the long day could bring –
Whenever I came with a question
You always had answers. I sing

To the memory and to the beauty
Of books with their spines in a row:
Enticing, seductive, their authors
Have earned every inch. Do you know
Just how long every writer has toiled
To gain such a place in a room
Where reality beckons its fingers
To reveal the light in the gloom?

I remember my childhood ramblings
When books made for children were rare
So I read adult memoirs, half starving
For words that were new. I would stare
At the poker-faced women who let me
Come and go with a natural ease
Never minding my pockets of toffees
My satchel, my spotty-faced wheeze.

But Gill Morris is somebody special:
A mother of four at one time
Who gave birth till the glories of sunset
Had mellowed and spelled out their rhyme.
And the novel I gave her at sunrise –
My Larkswood — came into her world
Because she had answered my questions
And so my creation unfurled.

With lifelong gratitude for all your fabulous help
and unstinting patience when I needed it most