Subject Stars: Year 11 Creative Writing

By Nathalie in Year 8

This piece is a creative writing story set as a piece of work in Mr. Dixon’s enrichment. It is about Darcey’s grandmother and was bravely read aloud to the group. Mr Dixon said that, by the end of the reading, the class were in tears and, ‘It was one of my most emotional memories as a teacher of English.’

Darcey herself said, ‘I feel honoured to be chosen and proud that my work has been selected’.

In the work, it brings across the importance of other people in our lives and encourages the reader to be grateful for the little things. In my eyes, I believe that this piece is brilliant with its description. The illustration of her grandmother’s garden is sublime, though I am very sorry for her loss.

You can read her beautiful work below:

My Grandma

By Darcey Hanson

My grandparent’s garden is the only reminder we all have of our grandma.

She had been a gardener of sorts, tending to all life within their fenced walls. Walking up and down the neatly paved path, she would feed and water the plants, weeds and all, as she hummed quietly under her breath.

In summer, my two sisters and I would walk through the rose hedges and hydrangea bushes, collecting flowers for the dinner table; the only time we all connected in wanting the same thing: to make our grandmother proud. After the hunt, we would sprint back to the house, Last one there is a rotten tomato! When we arrived, she would be waiting, ready to quiz us on the names of the flowers we had picked. This passion of hers fitted her perfectly: she was bright and lively for a woman of 80 who had been through so much.

She didn’t talk about the war or about her still-born sister, but she showed us her world through the flowers she grew. Bright dandelions for when she had met my grandfather and poisonous fox gloves for the loss of a loved one.

She died quietly one night after a family gathering at Christmas. We hadn’t known she was ill. She liked to keep some things to herself, you see. When she was gone, everything went with her: the garden became a dark maze even in summer; my grandfather stopped laughing in the old, hearty way that used to make his belly roll; we stopped running outside and back in hoping to show her the best flowers; everything seemed to go cold.

But I suppose her absence brought my sisters and I closer together in another thing: our love for our grandma, the one who loved us all, and forever called us her little daisies.