We Love The News: Grandmother's pride at seeing granddaughter's name in print - and an unfinished poem....

For proud grandmother Colleen Turner, 83, from Stubbington, seeing her granddaughter’s byline in The News brings great joy.

Leah Holford, a freelance journalist, enjoys sharing her work and after rediscovering a poem she wrote nearly three decades ago, which Colleen finished, she got in touch with The News to see if we could make her grandmother’s day.

Leah, from Southsea, said: ‘I’ve always wanted to write, from a young age, but it was something I never felt I was good enough at and so I got a job as a teaching assistant and forgot all about it until this last 18 months when I created Leah Holford Literary and started working freelance.

‘When I was little, I would often write these really bad poems and make my family listen to me recite them.

‘My nan and granddad used to care for me after school while my mum was at university, and I wasn’t always the easiest child to look after.

‘One day, I’d argued with my nan about something and I’d gone off to sulk in the living room.

‘My family has always loved the beach, Southsea being so near our house, so I can only assume that in an attempt to apologise to my nan, I wrote her this poem and left it on the kitchen side where I knew she’d find it.

‘I came out from sulking and found that she’d not only seen the poem, but she’d added her own verse to it, and she was quite the poet!

‘The argument wasn’t mentioned again. After that, we would often do those poems where you write a line each and see where it goes, but they were never that good.

‘But that first poem meant so much to me, I’m not sure exactly why that particular one, and I’ve kept it all these years.’

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Leah, whose real name is Kelly-Marie Turner, said her grandparents were like her second parents, and that her grandmother is still a great friend.

She said: ‘My Nan is still one of my best friends to this day. The other day she asked me out of nowhere if I remembered the day we wrote a poem together.

‘I said that I did and was impressed that she’d remembered. It had meant a lot to me, but I never realised how much it had meant to her.

‘I showed her and she was over the moon.

‘She said that she’d love to see us in the paper together. She has print copies of the articles I’ve written in her bedroom.

‘She’s every bit the proud grandmother and honestly, my biggest fan.’

The poem reads:

“I watched the sea as it drifted in,It’s so silent you can hear a pin.I picked some shells upon the shore,Some shells I’d never seen before.I walked further there I saw,Apart of a beaten up old yawl.-K M Turner

For Colleen Turner

(nanny)”Then Colleen added:“My mind drifted along with the tide,Wondering what dark secrets the old yawl did hide!Where had it been?What had it seen?Many mysteries to unfold,That old yawl upon the shore.”

We Love The News

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