A Path to the Land of Sweet dreams

How a Faraway Tree, a Greendale bus, and a bathroom covered in talcum powder helped to shape a poem.

I wrote the poem that follows this introduction, some time in the mid to late 1990s. My children were small and life was chaotic!  Days were full of school runs, after school activities, messy bedrooms, giggles and tantrums. Perhaps it wasn’t a perfect childhood - neither theirs nor mine, growing up in the 1970s - but it did have its share of wonder and of magic. 

As a young girl, I lost myself in the books of Enid Blyton.  Stories such as "Come to the Fair", "The Magic Wishing Chair" and "The Faraway Tree with its ever-changing lands at the top were an escape into my imagination. Twenty-something years later, I shared these same books with my own children and watched as they created lands of their own, some borrowed from books, some created from their own imagination. 

I remember finding Martin, (about 2 years old) covered in white powder. Having recreated the story, "Thomas the Tank Engine and the Snow", he was running his little train through a pile of talcum powder which he had poured into a mound on the bathroom floor. As I walked in Edward (the green train I think) was doing his very best to help Thomas who was buried in the snow.  I remember Jane and her friend Holly, building cardboard houses for their paper dolls, and also that Nichola's favourite story was "Postman Pat and The Greendale Bus" - I think we read this book together every night for a month!

This poem was also much loved by them and was often requested after story time, probably as a way to prolong settling down to sleep. It comes from a shared space, from a world of innocence, of playfulness and of imagination. 

To my children - thank you for the joy, the noise, and the wonder. You made my world magical in ways even Enid Blyton never imagined. And to my granddaughter, Lily (A K-pop Demon Hunter - aged 7) and all the grandchildren who may follow - may your lives be full of love, laughter, and magical lands of your own making.

THE LAND OF SWEET DREAMS

Let me tell you of a trip
Aboard my magic sailing ship
We sailed across the bright blue sky
Into a place where air balloons fly.

There were chocolate trains on a liquorice track
Honey bees flew to candy flowers and back
Lemon drops which once grew on trees
Lay on the ground piled up to our knees.

A fresh cream river ran through Strawberry Creek
Where boys and girls played hide and seek
On Treacle Sponge mountains covered in custard
The whistling pop lollies bustled and blustered.

My Children and I we wanted ice cream
There was any flavour of which you could dream
Some of us had strawberry and some of us had lime
In this land so fun, so peaceful, a land without crime.

We saw marshmallow swans on a syrupy lake
We saw chocolate drops on a fairy cake
We saw a gingerbread man on a trampoline
And sat on her throne was a shortbread queen.

When, much too quickly it was time to go home
The shortbread queen left her royal icing throne
And said to me “come again soon”
Then she flew away to a lemonade moon.

Let me tell you of a trip
Aboard my magic sailing ship
We sailed across black treacle sky
Back to our home where the nightingales fly.