Why I would be no good in Narnia

I definitely wouldn’t have gone that far into the wardrobe, for starters. There’s nothing Lucy likes so much as the feel of fur, we are told. So she climbs in the wardrobe and gets in among the fur coats, pushing her way further in so she can feel the furry goodness all around her. I, on the other hand, am not so passionate about fur. I might have stuck my hand or arm in for a second or two, then left. I certainly would not have physically climbed into the wardrobe.

I’m not that keen on Turkish Delight. Don’t get me wrong. Turkish Delight is fine and nice in its own way but I definitely wouldn’t have gone to the extremes that Edmund did to get some more.

I don’t say “Blast and botheration” enough. Digory, in The Magician’s Nephew says this line fairly near the start of the adventure, at a point where I would have said something like, “This sucks,” which I don’t think is child-friendly reading.

Even if I had gotten all the way into Narnia, I probably would have explained it away by saying I must have found my way outside in a freak snowstorm and never gone back.

Instead of going off to find Aslan and make friends, I probably would have concluded that lions are not the safest creatures to have as friends and stayed home, leaving everyone else to the adventures.

I don’t eat enough large spreads of bread, butter, freshly caught fish, currant buns and tea, made for me by woodland creatures. I much prefer something beautiful and dainty and, so far as I know, no-one in Narnia has been awarded a Michelin star yet. You probably can’t even get truffles.

Susan would annoy me too much. She’s always moaning.

Once inside the wardrobe and having found Narnia, I would have had to nip back to this world to get a book to read and probably would never have got back in again.

If I’d have found Aslan and he’d said I had to fight a battle against the baddies, I probably would have insisted he got the army in to do it and pottered off to the castle to wait for a text message to say they’d won.

When crowned, I would have requested that I be called Laura The Abominable Snow-woman, just for fun, which would have annoyed serious Peter and boring Susan, I think.

There aren’t enough mentions of cups of tea in Narnia.