MAL FOSTER : a poet of the ordinary man

There is a certain irony about my poem The Wedding. It was wrtten in the aftermath of the break up of my first marriage in 1979 with Nita after just 10 months. It was a very matter of fact parting of the waves -  mainly because we had succumbed to the pressures of the wedding day itself without thinking beyond it. I was 21 - she was just 19.
My second marriage some 10 years later to J. was meant to be a stepping stone into maturity and security for life. Ok for ...

Six years ago today, it was my mum’s funeral. Held at Woking Crematorium in St Johns, Surrey a sparse congregation gathered to see my mum off, she was 74, I was 47. The day still seems to haunt me in a sort of a comforting way. The Crematorium is the world’s oldest and is what partly inspired me to write my poem ‘Man in a white suit’. It’s all about standing at the back of your own funeral and examining how you would react to what’s being said. My mum was a...

Worked out yesterday that its 27 years ago this month since I appeared in an AMDram version of South Pacific at the Civic Hall in Camberley (now Camberley Theatre). I played Joe Cable and I'm still wondering how I managed to get my tongue (and voice) round those songs. Saw a bit of the film on tv yesterday and 'Younger Than Springtime' as well as the whole libretto still gives me goosebumps. I often wonder what happened to all those ...