Timothy Winters tamed his hair,
Washed his neck with unwonted care,
And flattened each ear on alternate nights
So his unkempt appearance would be put to rights.
He laced up his trainers on well-scrubbed feet,
His pride in those trainers was hard to beat,
And his track-suited legs were now warmly impounded,
While his once-grumbling belly was comfortably rounded.
Timothy Winters’ social worker
Had grappled the law like a Viking berserker,
Successfully wrestled the reddest red tape
And given Tim’s life – and his father’s – more shape.
As Timothy Winters keeps growing up,
He’s drinking a less bitter drink from life’s cup.
He’s climbing up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
And his case-worker’s efforts have sown valuable seeds.
Now Timothy Winters can concentrate
On his reading and writing and seven times eight.
He’s no longer thought of as strange and smelly,
And one boy’s invited him home to watch telly.
Yet he hasn’t forsaken those less fortunate
That they pray for in school and put coins on a plate.
With eyes wide to their suffering he wants it exposed –
He may be a future Charles Dickens; who knows?
Yes, Timothy still has his own vital spark
That glimmered, though feebly, when his outlook was dark,
And is now being fanned into adolescent flame,
So that Timothy Winters will soon make his
name.
April 2023