Carol Ann Duffy's "Freelance" was published in the TLS of March 10-16 1989.

The man sitting next to me on the train to Lancaster was obviously bored. He fidgeted, attempted conversation, went to the buffet twice (crisps, cans of lager) and by Crewe had resorted, rot him, to stealing sly peeps at what I was writing. This is irritating enough when one is drafting a harmless refusal to an invitation to read at a Baptist Primary School in Penrith. But when rewriting a poem – an unrhyming love poem – a dirty unrhyming love poem – it is distinctly unnerving. Aghast at the first line of the second stanza, I closed my notebook, bent down too quickly to shove it into my briefcase, and knocked over the man’s drink. Returning ten minutes later with a replacement Carlsberg for him and a gin-and-tonic for myself; I moved (“terribly clumsy! more room . . .”) to a seat across the aisle; but not before he had satisfied his curiosity. “Well, er, I’m a poet”, I said, backing away from a disappointed man.

After running a three-hour writers’ workshop at Lancaster University, I travelled hoarsely to Preston for the first Poetry Festival there. Douglas Dunn, Edwin Morgan and myself, on late, were billeted (Be Warned) at the small Claremont Hotel, arriving there at about 11pm to find a “Function” in full swing. Douglas was the only one willing to brave the noise and the people for a nightcap. Having unpacked in Room 11, conveniently situated immediately above the disco, I telephoned reception and inquired a) when would the Function cease? and b) any chance of a sandwich? “Midnight” and “maybe”, replied a churlish Prestonian voice. Half an hour later, a plate of curling, white-bread ham sandwiches appeared, one with a small bite taken out of it. I went to bed, vowing to get up at dawn for the first train home. “You’ll Never Walk Alone” thumped up from below. My toothbrush danced in its glass.

Back in London, I opened the post. No cheques. Already piqued, I read on. Would I kindly read in a pub in Highbury for ten quid? Could a school I visited in South Wales last year send me their poems from time to time and would I write reports on them, gratis? The bank statement fell from my nerveless fingers and the telephone rang. It was an invitation to read poems at a public school; for which I quoted a very stiff fee indeed. To my amazement, the school agreed. Perked up no end, I got out my notebook and resumed the rewriting of the dirty love poem.

I showed it to the poet Matthew Sweeney two days later as we travelled together on a train to Kent. “Strange”, he said. Matthew showed me one of his, a kids’ poem about a flying spring onion, which filled me with envy. We were on our way to do a school visit for the day; somewhat apprehensively, as the school had expressed concern over the content of some of our adult poems. As if. I told Matthew a story about a mutual friend who was lectured by the female Head of English at the start of a weekend writing-course for sixth-formers. No drinking. No smoking. No language. And no staying up late. Our friend took a sip of whisky and considered his reply. “I suppose a fuck’s out of the question?” he said.

Heartened by this shining example, Matthew and I arrived at St Philomena’s school and were ushered into a large classroom awash with mixed children. “Good morning, Miss Duffy; good morning, Mister Sweeney”, they shrieked en masse. The school was uncomfortably reminiscent of my own junior school. Plaster statues of the BVM. A priest in the staff-room. However, the kids seemed very keen and, to my horror, declined the morning break in favour of staying in to continue the workshop. I nipped out for a fag anyway; and returned to find them running amok, with poems all over the floor. Brats.

Click here to read Duffy’s poem "Fraud", with an introduction by Alan Jenkins, first published in the TLS in 1992.

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