Touching poem dedicated to the Queen in demand in schools and libraries

The country, and much of the world, is in mourning after the Queen passed away last Thursday.

Many have been moved by a touching poem for children dedicated to HM Queen Elizabeth written by children's poet Juli Frances Taylor who has received many lovely comments and requests for a copy.

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It has been set to music by Radio Oxford and played throughout the week as the county prepare for its goodbyes.

A number of schools, including Bampton, Carterton and St Joseph's Carterton, and libraries have asked to display the poem which is illustrated by Swindon-based Steve Antony.

He is author/illustrator of children's book The Queen’s Hat which was a huge hit this year in the run-up to the Platinum Jubilee.

The poem Riding On A Rainbow includes the verses:

[Grandma] said “The colours of a rainbow

Show what’s inside of you;

Red, orange and yellow

For happiness, and for love too

Green for our own precious Earth

Blue for the sky and for the oceans

And indigo and violet

For feelings and emotions

She said “Some people only ever

Try to find the pot of gold

They never see the rainbow

Or know the magic that it holds

Because the secret about rainbows

Is when you climb up to the top

Then slide down the other side

You never want to stop!”

“So ALWAYS ride a rainbow

Look for adventure, not for gold!

Live all your life in COLOUR

Be brave! Be bright! Be bold!

And, when I’m not here with you

Then just ride it on your own

You can keep me in your heart

So you’ll never be alone”

Ms Taylor, whose poems for children include subjects such as kindness and friendship, divorce, LGBTQIA+, bullying, and different abilities, said: "I wanted to write something about bereavement. My daughter was very young when both my parents died and I found when children ask about death as long as you give a satisfactory answer it’s fine.

"If you say things like they’ve gone to a better place, children think, what’s better than being here with me?

"I had just finished it and was tweaking it when the news of the Queen's death broke. And I thought, this is so odd. And then I saw the rainbow over Windsor Castle and I just thought this has to be about the Queen, and I changed a few words and including things like magic and pot of gold.

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"I read the poem to a group of under sixes and I don’t think any of those children had come across even a pet dying so it’s raw, it’s new, it’s confusing.

"And I wanted to get across the fact that grandparents teach, they love and they guide and always trying their best for you just like her Majesty did. She prepared the family for everything that is coming after."

Ms Taylor grew up in Jericho, Oxford, in the 60s and 70s with a family of University staff.

She said: "My entire family worked for St Johns. We were a big, big Royalist family. I admired the Queen for her dignity, grace and what she stood for. The generation before me I think was brought up to love and revere her.

"But what’s hit me most of all has been that it’s brought back so many memories of people in my own family who have gone. It’s sort of opened those wounds again. Those memories of  sitting glued to the television watching Royal weddings and Jubilees.

"I think it’s wonderful what the Royal family are doing when we forget they are actually a family in mourning and yet they have to be so much in the public eye."

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