Tell us your stories of imaginary friends to win bag of goodies courtesy of Macmillan Children's publishers

[EmilyMumsnet]

Imaginary friends...have you ever had one? Have your children or grandchildren? Macmillan Children's Books are celebrating today's paperback publication of Moone Boy: The Blunder Years by Chris O'Dowd and Nick Vincent Murphy and would love to hear your stories.

Based on the hit TV show on Sky One, Moone Boy: The Blunder Years shares this hilarious story of imaginary friendship with younger readers. Perfect for boys and girls aged 9+, the book follows Martin Moone on his quest for a decent wingman to help him navigate his idiotic life. When his best mate Padraic suggests Martin should get an imaginary friend (or IF) he decides to give it a go.

Macmillan's favourite tale will win the poster an exclusive Moone Boy goodie bag including:

A signed hardback copy of Moone Boy: The Blunder Years
A paperback copy of Moone Boy: The Blunder Years
A Moone Boy bobble hat
Moone Boy swag - a poster, bunting, bookmark and post-it notes

This competition is now closed

And the winner is...
Mummymoanasaurus, for the delightful image of the herd of elephants crowding in for tea.

Thank you for all your wonderful stories - special mention to SevenEleven and Princess Keith, and RhinosAreFatUnicorns with Bob the tapdancing spider - and long may your imaginary friends live!

My sister drove me mad with her imaginary friend Datdaw I could never see him!!! She is 35 now with two children of her own but is still convinced he was real!! (she would kill me for telling that hehe!)

My son and daughter have a common imaginative friend and sometimes they will have tea or play together with him.

Mine was "friendly" and he/she got the blame whenever I got caught doing something I shouldn't!! It was a great comfort to me. Someone on my side!

My son had an imaginary friend whom he played with and he said there was a few of the sitting on the sofa so he would make me get up off the sofa saying I was squashing them. Lol

None of my children had imaginary friends but I did - lots of unnamed ones I referred to as "my girls" and "my boys" when I was little, and then a twin brother called Richard who stayed with me until my teens! When I was small we lived in the country, and in the days before playgroups/nursery schools I had barely spoken to another child of my own age, let alone played with one, until I went to school at 5, which may be why I invented playmates.

My Dad had one who was an old man he used to sit on the stairs with. He still believes he was real.

Mine was a magic white rat called Gillion. He used to sit on my shoulder at school, laugh at my jokes and comments, and was my only friend (yes, I was that weirdo).

I had an imaginary friend when I was between 3 and 6 ish. His name was Steven Beeven and he was a couple of years older than me. My aunty would plate him up proper dinners and keep the space for him on the sofa and things like that. We would play together and splish in the paddling pool and I would read to him.

All entirely "normal".

What isn't so normal (although I just think it was progressive of me) is that Steven Beeven (never just "Steven", always "Steven Beeven", btw) wore callipers on his legs because he was disabled and that was fine by me.

Looking back (30+ years) I have NO clue where I got the idea from, but ho hum...my imaginary friend had polio

My little boy had an imaginary friend for about 4 years. Having an imaginary friend wasn't the problem but he was called 'Foxy Bingo!' (Our young son was obviously very suggestible and had got the idea from the add off the telly). It didn't really bother us and we were hugely amused by when and where he would pop up ... but I think everyone looked at us strangely whenever my son called his friend by name. I wouldn't mind but I can honestly say I don't play online bingo - never have. Sadly he disappeared some time ago and my son now 9 cringes whenever we mention his friend! My daughter doesn't have an imaginary friend as such - but she has more than a couple of naughty teddies who mess up her bedroom, talk inappropriately and encourage her to do a whole host of naughty things. There really is no hope!

Had a sort of imaginary friend, one that would seem to metamorphosize to fit the occasion .... it was back during the days of my lone walks to and from primary school ... I would be the spaceship commander navigating through an asteroid field, or a superhero in a race against time with the baddies, or a detective trying to solve a complicated mystery, or a Formula 1 driver racing in the championship decider .... my imaginary friend would be my co-pilot - he (it was usually a 'he') would puzzle over the mystery/clues with me, would be 'someone' to explain my plans to. And he would be someone to sound off to, would totally understand me, never get tired of listening to me, he would agree with my decisions (or disagree if I was having a crisis of conscience).

Oh, those were the days ....

My eldest daughter had a whole herd of elephants as her imaginary friends, bringing them in the house for tea took ages I remember, every time I thought they were all in she would tell me who was missing.

My youngest son until recently had a whole host of them, horses called Ginger & Rusty, various cars and trees. He would point them out when we left the house to go anywhere and talk to them

I obviously have brought seriously weird children into the world!

My imaginary friends were aliens from the planet ABC, I had about half of my school class (all of my friends) believing me that they were going to come for me one night and I promised to stop off in the spaceship and pick them up too...

...my parents tried to convince me that I wasn't going to off with aliens, so they were rather surprised when the mum of a hateful child (who I obviously wasn't going to collect in the spaceship) told them "tell your daughter that the aliens WILL be taking Amanda back to their planet too" my parents were "o...k... We try to discourage all this alien stuff..."

My imaginary friends were called Sausie and Balittie. My Gran used to put out food for them at meal times. One evening, when I was around 4, she served up chilli and I promptly dropped a kidney bean on the floor and said "look, Sausie's done a poo already!"

My DD has a imaginary friend who is a bird and goes everywhere with her. She often wants us to go back somewhere to collect the bird-friend if it has been left behind, but fortunately is pacified when I roll down the window and the bird flies in! The bird has been with us for 6 years now and DD plays with it for hours on end. My DS had an imaginary friend who went everywhere with us for a while, and had a place set at every meal, complete with food. After a week or so I found out that this child actually existed at Nursery (he had only just started) and the two of them were inseparable when they were there.

When DS2 was 4 he had an imaginary friend - called Eggy - who was an egg (think like Humpty Dumpty - an egg with a face, legs, arms and a propensity to get broken). Eggy used to go to nursery with DS2 and come home, riding on his scooter (and falling off every time but luckily not always getting cracked - if he got cracked I had to give DS2 imaginary plasters for him) and Eggy would get very upset if he saw up cooking with other eggs and I had to apologise to him and explain that these were naughty eggs who were being punished by being eaten. Eggy left and went to live in Egg land after 6 months of living with us - I was rather relieved when he went!

DS1has an imaginary cat called "Brownie" - he's actually argued in supermarkets that we need food for him!

My brother had an imaginary friend that he 'shared' with his friend, Micheal. Micheal actually introduced my brother to the tiny, shoulder-riding boy called Bummy.

Obviously my sister and I could not see Bummy. Only his 'real friends' could. We pointed out that Bummy as called after our bottoms, but that did not deter Micheal and my brother from taking Bummy swimming (sneaking him into the swimmingpool in a backpack) or borrowing books for him from the library.

The two boys took turns having him over for sleepovers and they often got jealous of each other when Bummy seemed to enjoy himself too much at the other one's house.

I can't remember what exactly happened to Bummy, but at one stage a letter arrived informing us that Bummy has moved to another town. He then became a pen pal.

My Son Charlie had an imaginery friend called "Wilson". Wilson would come everywhere with us, we couldnt leave the house without Wilson, we couldnt go on holiday without Wilson and Wilson had his own place at the table.

One day I asked my Son where did the name "Wilson" come from and he said I dont know it's just Wilson.

When I was pregnant the day I went into labour I had had a lazy day in bed watching videos...my favourite was Castaway with Tom Hanks...I loved this film, watching intensly and crying at all the sad and happy scenes.

I like to think Tom Hank's "soccer ball and best friend" sent his vibes through to my bump sending him into action.

For anyone whose not seen the film the ball was called ... Wilson :)

I remember my imaginary friend called Tabitha when I was between about 3 and 7. I was the middle child between an older and young brother and Tabitha came along at the same time as my little brother appeared. She was the sister my little brother was supposed to be. My most vivid memory is being about 4 or 5 and mum would give me a bag of sweets to share with my little brother. "One for you, one for Tabitha and one for Me!" But we all know our 'special' friends can't eat real things so I got double when he wasn't looking! My little bro took all this until he was about 5 and the realisation that I was being a greedy so and so dawned!

When DD1 was about 3 she was staying overnight with my parents. My mum rang me to apologise for the fact that DD1 was hysterical and refusing to sleep because when my mum lay down on the bed to read her a bedtime story she squashed one of DD1's 4 imaginary friends.

Poor Binga. She recovered but DD1 would keep telling us that Granny squashed her in a very sad little voice.

DS had an imaginary friend called Mr Nobody, invented him after reading the Mr Men series of books.

My little girl had an imaginary friend called Bob. Bob was a spider who was so big he often woke her up with his tap dancing apparently. Bob lived in the kitchen but was so big and noisy she could hear him up upstairs! I indulged her - being terrified of spiders myself, didn't want the fear to be passed to her. This went on for a few days....one day I went to move the mop that had been pushed into the corner and out jumped the biggest spider I've ever seen. Apparently not an imaginary friend...and with the size of him I could believe it about the noise!!!

My imaginary friend lived in the skirting boards. She also had an imaginary friend.

My imaginary friend was called Broomie. It was a broomhead ! He used to sweep our kitchen when I was asleep. He obviously took the credit for what my DM did.I also had another called Liney. He lived in the line (the seam) at the top of my blanket.

DS had an imaginary friend called Dragonty Dragonty. Unsurprisingly, he was a dragon. We used to have to open the car window to let Dragonty Dragonty in when he was tired of flying beside us. And read Dragonty Dragonty a bedtime story.

Now, Dragonty Dragonty had an imaginary friend. He was called Mousity Mousity. Yes, you've guessed it. He was a mouse. Dragonty Dragonty used to pretend old Mousity used to ride on his back.

Just to complicate matters, Mousity Mousity ALSO had an imaginary friend called Wormity Wormity.

We made DS draw the line there.