21 SEPTEMBER 1991, Page 36

You and Whose Army?

They gave him his part in the school play at Christmas And smiled when they told him 'You won't need to practise And surely your Dad has a velveteen waistcoat And won't you be proud of your name in the programme And who was there ever called Badger or Ratty And shy little fellows are just as important.'

But fantasy nibbled away at resentment And mustered an army of dispossessed weasels And marched in his dreams on the Headmaster's Study And broke down the door in a welter of whiskers And carried him into the fray on their shoulders And after the coup helped themselves to the sherry.

John Mole