I’m pleased to announce that Begging Your Pardon, my tongue in cheek bid to be considered the UK’s next Poet Laureate, is ready for release. The kindle version of ‘Begging Your Pardon – Please  Can I Be Laureate?’ is available for pre order on Amazon.com or Amazon.uk now. The paperback version will be available Friday 30th November just in time for Christmas.

Begging Your Pardon – is a humorous collection of royal poems pushing the merits of a local poet who could pop round with a poem whenever the occasion demands it. 

The current Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy is standing down at the end of her ten year stint and a distinguished committee will be making recommendations for a new Laureate to be appointed in May. Some better known poets have made clear they don’t wish to be considered and have even called for the post to be abolished but I am available and willing and would aim to bring a lighter touch to the role. 

I won’t be too disappointed if they go for someone else. My poems are more fun than to be taken seriously; affectionate but slightly irreverent. There’s a fantasy view of a Windsor where locals regularly bump shoulders with the royals,  a wry look at royal life, such as what happens when they forget to take down the flag and an increasingly desperate correspondence about the Laureate role.

I have been writing poetry for a number of years and won a local competition for my riposte to Sir John Betjeman, ‘Living Breathing Slough’. I mostly writes online and two of my collections have been featured on Wattpad where they have had more than 100,000 reads. My first published work Margaret’s Story was a biography of his mother in verse.