‘That Fratton-sized happiness’ is a highly personal poem by Dale Gunthorp, delightfully perceptive in its understanding of childhood and of the pleasures, consolations, and delights of nature. It is quoted with the kind permission of the poet.

That Fratton-sized happiness

The girls worried about Georgie, our goldfish,
fleshy as an Englishman on the Costa del Sol,
who circled the pond a hundred times a day, every day.
‘He’s lonely’, said Hubble. ‘Velly lonely,’ added Leni.
‘Fish can’t feel lonely’, says the expert,
‘Georgie’s brain is smaller than your smallest finger-nail.’

But children win these arguments, and so we found ourselves
at Fur-Fin-&-Feather in Fratton,
where the girls earnestly chose that special two
from the myriads of tiny fish
jostling in a little tank.

So Mango and Rosie came home in a plastic bag,
and vanished into the weedy depths of the pond.

Days passed. Georgie faithfully
measured and re-measured the circumference of the pond;
the girls went back to the wind-up turtle in the bath
and I feared that Georgie’s small companions
had been casualties of cannibalism.

Then one morning they were all there –
two weaving figures of eight around each other
and one with all the dignity of the last dinosaur,
mouthing the team’s demand for breakfast.
The girls went wild. ‘There’s Rosie’; ‘That’s Mango.’

And now they come almost to our hands
surging up through the weed and the lily leaves,
bursting through the bubbles
winding round the iris roots
up and down and round and round in the green water,
florescent flashes of vermillion and gold.

‘Georgie is happy now’, say the girls.
‘Fish can’t feel happy’, says the expert,
‘Georgie’s brain is smaller than your smallest finger-nail.’
They lift a finger-nail and laugh, and their happiness flows
up from the pond, through Kingston Cemetery,
and into the air as high as the sky.

Dale Gunthorp (Millard) (1941 – ) is a Portsmouth poet, writer, and all-round good egg. Her background is colonial: born in South Africa of New Zealander and Mauritian parents, she left the country when the apartheid Security Police ransacked her bedsit. London, an accidental destination, gave her a new life. Having discovered that she possessed zero talent for teaching, she worked for Socialist Commentary, the organ of Socialist Vanguard, the Institute of Race Relations and the Commonwealth Secretariat, where she edited the monthly magazine Commonwealth Currents, wrote booklets, manuals and leaflets, and drafted speeches. Co-founder of the poetry magazine Candelabrum, Gunthorp was also an enthusiastic participant in the LGBT scene - and wrote and wrote.

Two of Dale’s novels, Looking for Ammu (1992) and Georgiana’s Closet (2000), have been published by Virago. Her other works include many poems published in various magazines, a few short stories for anthologies, and one collection of sub-erotic stories, The Flying Hart (Sheba).

Dale and her partner, Julie, moved to Southsea in 2005, in search of a kinder environment for their two young daughters, and joined Tongues and Grooves poetry club. As well as making her an integral part of Portsmouth’s vibrant creative scene, this inspired Dale to produce and co-edit (with Maggie Sawkins and Denise Bennett, the first anthology of poems about Portsmouth, the wonderful This Island City. Tongues and Grooves provided focus and an outlet for Portsmouth’s strong poetry voice, but lacked the resonance of print. So, with encouragement from George Marsh, and with the inspired input of Jon Everitt’s elegant and quirky woodcuts, plus support from Portsmouth News, Portsmouth High School and Fry & Kent – Gunthorp, Sawkins, and Bennett went ahead with a print run of 2.500 copies: a big number for a book of poetry, but it sold well, and does a magnificent job of selling Portsmouth as a poetry-rich city. Its poems are widely represented on the Portsmouth Literary Map. Dale continues to write and to contribute to the city in many ways.

If you have any comments, queries, or suggestions about any of the map entries, please contact the Map Director, Mark Frost: mark.frost@port.ac.uk