Since he died last week, and with Christmas not long away, I’ve been re-reading Benjamin Zephaniah’s famous Turkeys poem and it’s been making me smile. I can imagine him writing on his typewriter, the rhythm of the poem matched by the clacking of the keys.

As a child, Benjamin was given this old, manual typewriter, which he says inspired him to become a writer. He left school at 13, dyslexic and unable to read and write, yet the presence of this object in his life, along with a thousand other things, led him to go on to become one of the most recognised poets in the UK in recent decades. What a fabulous story, now immortalised in this object.

Benjamin appeared in an episode of the Art Fund show Meet me at the Museum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKhqnJGjxoE