No.9 Random Lamp Posts

The little girl had a very active imagination and loved to be in her own head thinking up stories, questioning histories, and planning how her life would play out. Some people would call it “daydreaming” but she thought of it as just “thinking”….and I hope you know how important “thinking” is. Her imagination was also fed by books and in particular fantastical books about magical lands. When she wasn’t reading these books the little girl would be thinking about them and looking for evidence of the existence of these magical possibilities.

Having read “The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe” the little girl started seeing random, solitary lamp posts in various places. Anyone who has read that book knows about random, solitary lamp posts. And anyone who has read “The Magician’s Nephew” knows where these random, solitary lamp posts came from. So it came as no surprise to the little girl that, when she was reading these books, she realised she had already seen one of these lamp posts and it was in a place that she already suspected was magical. On the street where the little girl lived was a house where, hundreds of years before, a queen had once stayed. In the neat, tidy, organised gardens of that house there was a random, solitary lamp post!

The little girl felt the lamp post had to be magical as she had already decided that the house and gardens were. The little girl thought that magic had once upon a time been everywhere and quite common place. That magic was something that had been lost and forgotten over time. That magic was just sleeping and all you had to do was believe, really believe.

When the little girl visited the gardens, she liked to put her hand on the lamp post’s cool, black metal post and look up into the lamp, and try to wish magic into the world. She imagined she could feel an energy there. Was it the energy of the past she could feel or the remnants of magic still sleeping? (More likely it was the hum of electricity but we would tell her that!)