Imaginary Friends

Friendly Monster

When M was 2 the Dubmeister was mad about Star Wars. He was given a box set of movies 1-3 by his genius godmother and watched them until the discs were burnt through. Little M used to sit on the floor next to him taking it all in.

It was after watching the 3rd run of Star Wars 2 that she met Friendly Monster - her imaginary friend.

Friendly Monster went everywhere with us. He travelled in the petrol cap of the car, slept in a cot designed for Sylvanian Families and enjoyed eating peas. He was M's best friend. We even lost him once before finding him curled up in the spokes of one of the car's wheels.

Friendly Monster came from a long line of Imaginary Friends. When I was 2-3 I had two of them - Dada and Patish. Patish joined the army - I think he was last seen standing outside Buckingham Palace resplendent in red uniform and bearskin hat. I have no idea what happened to Dada - I guess we lost touch.

My lovely wife had a friend called Sarah who was a spider. She travelled everywhere with her in a bucket before, in a spooky premonition of that fright we had with Friendly Monster, getting lost on her drive way. Thankfully her parents found Sarah before she ran under an imaginary car to suffer an imaginary fate worse than an imaginary death.

Imaginary Friends are everywhere - my lovely wife tells me that during a game of I Spy in the Reception class she supports a little boy stumped the rest of the class when they couldn't spy "something beginning with an M" until his friend piped up "Do you mean your imaginary friend Magic?"

Of course he did!

I am all for imaginary friends. They are flexible, very friendly and always there for you. I also think they are a sign of an extremely creative imagination.

What is your position on imaginary friends? Are you a fan? Did you have one? Does your child have one? Or do you think that they are nothing but a bad influence?

Speak soon
JH