The poem “Tich Miller” by Wendy Cope is about two schoolgirls named Tich Miller and Tubby. Tubby is explaining different incidents that she experienced in her youth, which caused quite some trauma for her and Tich Miller. We don’t know the gender of Tubby but I am assuming that Tubby is a girl. Tubby is telling us about how Tich and she always were the last persons to be picked for outdoor games. When the team had to pick players the last person to be picked was always Tich who stood back and was not picked. Tubby says that it was because she was, “the lesser dud”, when the teams had to take them in consideration. It is my impression that Tubby and Tich are almost equal if you look at their social status but Tubby is just a tiny bit more “cool” and therefore she gets picked before Tich.
In the first stanza of the poem there is a small characterisation of Tich Miller. It only says that she wears glasses and had one foot three sizes larger than the other. Tich is described as a very shy and clumsy child and therefore she as described stood behind, unnoticed or disregarded, when they picked teams for outdoor games. I think the incident that she is describing completely altered the course of her life. It affected her self-consciousness throughout the rest of her life.
Tubby seems quite clever and knows that she needs to adapt for getting through the bullying. She can take criticism, which Tich cannot. It does not seem like Tubby and Tich are very good friends. The poem states that they are not making any eye contact nor are they talking to each other. I would expect them to stand together when they are getting bullied but actually the opposite happens. They are avoiding each other and that appears to be a bad decision for both of them. You could imagine that Tubby is chubby and therefore the name. She is being treated like Tich unnoticed and overlooked.
Both of them are having a hard time in school. They do not fit in like the other kids. I