And on went went to Tattingstone Primary, where we met Arthur who had an amazing voice - a sort of Junior Tom Waits' growl and a quick wit to match. When I asked him to make a list of some of the special things he could find in his part of Suffolk, he thought for a moment and the replied is his husky tone, 'One Way Road'. It sounded like it should have been backed with a jazz accompaniment or at least a double-bass and saxophone. I told him that he HAD to write a poem called 'One Way Road'. He laughed and then he did, and riffed around the title which became a chorus rolling through his poem. It had an ice-cream van and faces in the trees. By the end of the session the whole class loved the journey he took us on and we couldn't stop saying 'One Way Road'. It became a gloriously strange song that we all wanted to sing.
ONE WAY ROAD Trees with faces grinning at you on the one way road a bridge that twists and turns makes you sick on the one way road an ice-cream van has no driver with errily inappropriate music tinkling down the one way road on the road it’s always dark and I was the only one to live on the one way road I was trapped.
Arthur, Tattingstone Primary School
