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Contents
We Have Ways of Making You Eat
For Goodness’ Sake – Let’s Take a Break…
If You Bill It, They Will Come
Dear Reader,
The book you are holding came about in a rather different way to most others. It was funded directly by readers through a new website: Unbound. Unbound is the creation of three writers. We started the company because we believed there had to be a better deal for both writers and readers. On the Unbound website, authors share the ideas for the books they want to write directly with readers. If enough of you support the book by pledging for it in advance, we produce a beautifully bound special subscribers’ edition and distribute a regular edition and e-book wherever books are sold, in shops and online.
This new way of publishing is actually a very old idea (Samuel Johnson funded his dictionary this way). We’re just using the internet to build each writer a network of patrons. At the back of this book, you’ll find the names of all the people who made it happen.
Publishing in this way means readers are no longer just passive consumers of the books they buy, and authors are free to write the books they really want. They get a much fairer return too – half the profits their books generate, rather than a tiny percentage of the cover price.
If you’re not yet a subscriber, we hope that you’ll want to join our publishing revolution and have your name listed in one of our books in the future. To get you started, here is a £5 discount on your first pledge. Just visit unbound.com, make your pledge and type RHYMES in the promo code box when you check out.
Thank you for your support,
Dan, Justin and John
Founders, Unbound
Introduction
As parents, many of us are more than willing to drive our kids around, attend their school events, participate where necessary and generally do our bit. But there is a limit.
For me, the annual school poetry competition was the one. We were all tired of the same old poems being regurgitated, and my eldest son asked me to write one for him to read out. One with a bit more relevance. And more laughs. He didn’t win, but “The Poetry Recitation” went down well so I did the same thing the next year for son number two. By the time it was the third son’s turn, we won the damn thing.
That winning poem was “Just Where You Left It” and you’ll find it here, alongside other poems that reflect on the more amusing aspects of families and modern life. Whether the theme is school rituals or family holidays, breaking the rules, friendship or the many embarrassing faults that parents possess, I have tried to cast a humorist’s eye over them all in verse form. And attempted to make them rhyme. Most of the time.
I hope you enjoy them.
David Roche
Just Where You Left It
“Mum, I can’t find my shin pads and it’s football today.
It’s the 3rds v St Wotsits and we’re playing away.
They’ve got that big
