Patricia M Osborne

I’m delighted to welcome back poet, Margaret Royall, to Patricia’s Pen. This time to discuss her upcoming poetry collection, Toccata and Fugue with Harp to be published by the very awesome The Hedgehog Poetry Press. Without further ado, it’s over to Margaret.

A personal perspective on my poetry collection

‘Toccata and Fugue with Harp’

Margaret Royall

Following on from the success of my memoir of childhood, The Road to Cleethorpes Pier, published May 2020 by Crumps Barn Studio, I realised I had only told a fraction of the story and had many more memories to explore. Requests came in for a part two and I put pen to paper again delving into the recesses of memory’s deeper…. and darker… vaults. This time I was determined to deal with the challenging side of childhood, adolescence and young adulthood, by exploring the age old question ‘which has the greater influence upon our development from child to man/woman, nature or nurture?’

In the  ‘Toccata’ section I write about early years. My  postwar upbringing was very different from contemporary times. It was a time of austerity, ration books, a period which saw the nation start to recover from World War 11 and saw the introduction of the NHS. At home we had none of the household appliances deemed essential today, no fridge, washing machine or TV. School and church were the dominant factors in a child’s life back then. School was a strict regime, where teachers ruled with a rod of iron and misbehaviour was swiftly dealt with by corporal punishment.

My parents were devout Methodists, very involved with our local chapel and I was there most days of the week. It was a strict regime with a lot of prohibition, including a no alcohol rule. Drink was the Devil’s elixir and to be avoided at all costs. I was encouraged to to ‘sign the pledge’ age six, vowing never to touch a drop of alcohol in my life! Yet I had no real understanding of what this meant. We were even told not to put vinegar on our chips, as this was a fermented substance too.

The Intermezzo section of the book addresses my discomfort. As I grew older I appreciated the folly of some of these rules and once I escaped to university I could choose my own path in life. I saw the bigger picture, especially in London in the swinging sixties. There I could be whoever I wanted to be, do whatever I fancied, but on visits home I found being back in a parochial setting challenging. My parents were extremely loving and had always striven to do their best for me, providing me with opportunities to pursue ballet and music classes. Yet I had felt as an only child the burden of expectation weighing heavy on my shoulders. I had to do well, be competitive, make them proud. My parents sometimes lived their lives vicariously through me and it was stressful. I often felt like an outsider looking in on life from the periphery of a circle.

The final Fugue section brings things up to date and celebrates the joys of my life now in my third age. I love my quaint cottage in a small rural Nottinghamshire village and enjoy strolling in nature. This is documented in the long walking meditation poem at the start. Since music and colour have always been dominant factors in my life, the poems in this section each have a suggestion of a piece of music and an artist’s colour to accompany them.

My final conclusion is that nature and nurture probably played equal roles in shaping the person I have become.

If you’d like to find out more about this wonderful collection, please visit Margaret’s website HERE.

About Margaret Royall

Margaret has six books of poetry. She has won or been shortlisted in various competitions and widely published. She was recently chosen as an Erbacce Press featured poet. She has three books forthcoming in 2024 with Hedgehog Press, Dreich and Impspired.

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