This pamphlet is more than the sum of its parts. The parts are: history, memory, family, landscape, language, overheard conversations, popular songs, dreams and the grey shambling farce of growing old in the same house you’ve lived in for 25 years. Hopefully the sum will add up; hopefully to more than its parts.

"A force of nature."
The Guardian

'Platform 2'

We are both waiting and he comes over to me,
His cap is dark. I found my dad
He says, as though he knows me. Good I say,
That’s good. His cap, his cap is dark.
At stair bottom Ian. He’d hung hissen.
His cap, his cap, his cap is dark.
He must have been low, Ian, to do that
Does tha think? His cap, his cap, his cap, his
Cap is dark. I allus get a return ticket,
Just in case. His cap, his cap, his cap, his cap
You know the rest

Ian McMillan’s many books include his verse autobiography Talking Myself Home, The Richard Matthewman Stories (with Martyn Wiley) and I Found This Shirt. His children’s poems are collected in The Very Best of Ian McMillan (Macmillan). Ian is Barnsley FC’s writer-in-residence, tours with The Ian McMillan Orchestra and presents The Verb on Radio 3.