What The Shell

Dear O'H dear and Lovely Tea Jenny,

This snail has the right idea. It can meet chums AND stay inside.

When I started P7, we had just come back from living in Africa. My brother and I had gone to an English school there and came back with terribly, terribly posh accents. My new class was asked some poetry and my offering was about a snail. Sadly I still remember the first few lines...

Slowly slowly the snail moved,
Leaving a silvery trail.
If it was a boat,
Its shell would be a sail.

I know - move over Wordsworth!

This happens to be ingrained in my memory because I was asked to read it as part of a school performance. On account of me ‘speaking nicely.’

The problem was that speaking like an extra in The Crown made me about as popular in school as Freddie Krueger in a dream.

So shortly after my rendition, I ditched the accent*. And poetry - although this was clearly for the best. Not even sure the Queen could have made that sound good!

C

*Although I did have period of speaking with a Scottish accent at school and an English accent at home. I was completely unaware that I did it unless I had friends over and it morphed into a strange hybrid accent (which baffled my mum and my friends). It was like I had forgotten how to speak. Too many voices in my head!