Toccata and Fugue with Harp

Nature versus Nurture?

Reflections on growing up in the post war era, viewed through a lens of music and colour.

"How to compose a life in a single collection. Here, in the shadow of childhood strings, the walls hum with myth, magic, post-war tremors and religious oppression. Margaret's ghost of youth, in search of escape, stomps its feet, speaks of the need to repress, to rage and most of all, to revolt. These are songs of the confessional, the confrontational, poems examining the child caught under the thumb, learning what to do with freedom when it's found and later, as adult, learning about loss and the cost of scars. This is a bitter sweet cacophony that swings and sways from sermons to seductions, a Lincolnshire lass looking from the vase of yesterday's rose, time travelling on the flap of a butterfly's wing - fragile, frightening, finite, memories unspooling between Rachmaninoff and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Scores of truths, tastes and touches, notes that times has taken, tamed, and sometimes turned from hurt to a semblance of halcyon."

"I was delighted to delve into Toccata and Fugue which lives up to the title with its musical tone throughout. Margaret Royall skilfully wraps her memories in gorgeous imagery and sound echoes. Precious Jewellery, inspired by the colour amber and Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, held my immediate attention with its ingenious experimental form. Royall takes the reader back to her childhood and beyond. The collection is split into two parts making it easy to dip in and out of at any one time. Highly recommend this for any poetry lover's bookshelf."

"In Toccata and Fugue, Margaret Royall presents an inspiring collection of poetry that impressively describes the marvels and challenges of a fulfilled life in music and colours. These lovely poems are Margaret's heartfelt invitation to join her on her exciting journey from a postwar childhood shaped by religion to the fascinating charisma in the third age. Toccata and Fugue deserves a place on everyone's nightstand."

"Toccata and Fugue is a memoir told through a series of anecdotes, in which we as readers are allowed the freedom to fill in the spaces. In these poems Margaret Royall takes us vividly back in time. She shows us scenes from her childhood and youth, along with a few from later years, giving us glimpses not just of what she sees and remembers of what happened then, but also hints of how past events and relationships may have influenced who the poet later became and the choices she made. Dripping on toast, beach-side holidays, the scent of Pears soap and Devon Violets perfume, alongside images of caring, anxious, god-fearing parents trying to navigate a complex, changing world themselves, conjure up a 1950s childhood and beyond. Composed with the energy and humour of toccata and the interwoven themes of fugue, this collection offers a rewarding poetic insight into a life that seems both familiar and unfamiliar in the present day - and perhaps turned out quite differently than it once seemed it might."