Action Annie
Story One
By
William Forde
Cover Illustration by Dave Bradbury
Copyright December 2011 by William Forde
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Author's Foreword
In dealing with the theme of this first story in the ‘Action Annie’ series of stories from the book of the same name, I wanted to address that perennial question that has perplexed the minds of millions of children ever since ‘Father Christmas’ became a prime feature of their Christmas Day celebrations. “If there is a Father Christmas, and he is a Christmas visitor to the home of every boy and girl across the world to give them a present; then why does he always give the most expensive presents to those children whose parents are the richest and the cheapest presents to those children whose parents are the poorest?”
In 1991, I penned ‘Annie’s Christmas Surprise’. At the time, I lived in Mirfield, West Yorkshire and hundreds of children and their parents were upset because two Mirfield Primary Schools were being closed and amalgamated with a third school in Mirfield. To provide a bit of cheer to those young children who were anxious about having to move to another school after the Christmas vacation; along with the assistance of a Bradford businessman, I arranged to provide all 400 children involved with their own exclusive Christmas gift; their very own book that was dedicated to their closed schools.
The story was read to the assembly of the three combined schools by the lately deceased author and dear friend of mine, Stan Barstow. Each child was pleased with the free story book gift that they were presented with by ‘Father Christmas’, especially a heartbroken 7-year-old Mirfield girl whose pink bicycle that her parents had bought her for Christmas had been stolen. During the special storytelling assembly that morning, Father Christmas was enabled to present the child with a brand new pink bicycle, which I’d persuaded a local cycle shop to donate.
Early in the New Year of 1992, I received a phone call from the late Dame Catherine Cookson and her husband Tom, with whom I was to become very friendly until their deaths. Dame Catherine and Tom had heard about the recently published Christmas story book that I’d given the children of the Mirfield schools and asked me to send her taped copies of any other ‘Annie’ stories that I planned to publish, as she had a proposition in mind. In 1996, ‘Action Annie’, a book of twelve seasonal stories, and which had been recorded by Brigid Forsythe (Thelma of TV ‘The Likely Lads’ fame), was published for the 5-9 year old reader, thanks to the project being financed by Dame Catherine Cookson and her husband as an anniversary gift. A special storytelling visit was made to Mirfield Library, where my friend, the late Sir Norman Wisdom, read the book to hundreds of Mirfield children. The book was later praised to the press by former Chief Inspector of Schools for OFSTED, Chris Woodhead, as ‘high quality literature.’
‘Who is Annie?’
Annie is an imaginative and very active seven-year-old whose mind and body is always on the move. She never seems to stop. Even as she sleeps, she is dreaming about the things she plans to do tomorrow. Annie is always thinking up new ideas and inventing things. She is such a busy child that her parents never know whether she's coming or going.
Annie is very determined. Once she gets an idea inside her head, she becomes determined to try it out. If her ideas don't work out the first time Annie tries them out, she won't give up. Instead, she will try and try again. Once Annie has decided to do something, nobody and nothing will stop her.
Annie's head is crammed with ideas and her body is filled with feelings, feelings which she finds impossible to hide from the outside world. Anyone can tell whether Annie is feeling happy or sad because she just can’t hide her feelings. Anyone can tell if Annie is in a good mood or a bad mood; by simply looking at her, and by listening to what she says and how she says it.
Whenever Annie is happy, her smiley face tells you so. And whenever she is sad, the smile on her face will quickly disappear and be replaced by a squashed-tomato look.
But, whenever Annie is ‘very, very, very happy', her eyes sparkle and grow bigger; the smile on her face widens, her two arms begin to rotate like the propellers of an aircraft, her two feet jump her body up into the air and her mouth gleefully yells out, "Yippee! Yippee! Yippee! Yippee for Annie!"
Whenever Annie gets angry, she begins to lose her temper. Her face turns red, the sound of her voice gets louder and she stamps one of her feet on the floor three times and says, "Bother! Bother! Bother!" But, whenever Annie gets 'very, very, angry' her face begins to scowl; her lips twist up and she stamps her foot on the floor three times saying, "Bother! Bother! Bother!" Then, both of her arms begin to rotate furiously as she jumps up into the air, and upon landing with both feet, she yells out loudly, "And Double Bother!"
Annie sometimes gets angry but she knows how to get the anger out of her. When Annie wants to get the anger out of her body, she writes it out, she talks it out and she acts it out. If she is angry with someone, she may write him or her a nasty letter and then tear it up without posting it. When she does this, she finds that expressing her feelings makes her feel a bit better, even when they are bad feelings. Sometimes, Annie will become annoyed with another person. Whenever that happens, Annie goes into a corner where she won’t be heard and calls the person a ‘Jolly old stinker!’ If she is very angry, she will go to her bedroom and pretend that the other person is her pillow. Then she will have a pillow fight. Or she may lie on her back on the bed and peddle her legs up in the air furiously until all the anger has left her body.
There is a little bit of Annie in every boy and girl. That's what makes her likeable. Read about Annie’s adventures and find out what bits of Annie are like you.
William Forde. December 2011
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"Annie's Christmas Surprise"