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 son has an imaginary friend called Christopher, when ever he does something he's not meant to he tells me it was Christopher,
Christopher once painted my ds head to toe in green sparkly paint

DD had imaginary twin friends, Lucy and Lizzie. They were very high maintenance - they even had food allergies.
Life is much easier with ds1 and his easygoing rabbit, Floppy.

I made up an imaginary friend for my little sister when she was younger cause she used to get upset at bedtime and struggle to sleep, he was a blue bird called bluey and he used to take us to parties where we met celebrities like backstreet boys and Aaron carter and 5ive she still brings it up from time to time!

My imaginary friend was called Andrew. (Although, initially, he was called A-a because he arrived when I was too young to speak properly.) I felt sorry for him because he lived in the cupboard under the kitchen sink, but he seemed to quite like it. He really enjoyed our family holiday to Colwyn Bay but he was frightened of the steep steps up to the front door of the hotel, so my mum always had to hold his hand as we went up and down those. He took being ignored/sat on by others with very good grace. I took it less well and was regularly outraged on his behalf.

The only thing I thought could have been better about Andrew was his hair, which was a very unflattering bowl cut. His dungarees were ace though.

My daughter had an imaginary friend too. As she was a big fan of literal naming, he was called Mr Invisible Man. She said he was sort of translucent with a black outline, like a cartoon. I'm sure he was very nice, and all that, but still not a patch on Andrew.

All of my dc have had imaginary friends. Our record was 44 imaginary friends at one time, including Bob the Builder, Macca Pacca and all the Pevensey children from Narnia. Now just three remain, although occasionally dd2 tries to encourage ds to make up a few new ones for her to play with now she is too old to have her own.

I would out myself to give their names but they seem to be normal children living extraordinary lives. Take Alfie(name changed to protect the imaginary), she (yes I know it's a boy's name) has 100 houses scattered around Europe. All the ones we have seen are large but near to the motorway, they are pointed out as we whizz by. She has a variable number of siblings ranging from 2 to 18 and is a time traveller. Generally she is a year older than ds, but is often 8 and has even been known to be a baby and once was 80(that's when she had 18 siblings). Occasionally Alfie is mean to ds and sometimes she is naughty. She hasn't been around for a while and ds has been busy in reception and with his new best friend another girl, she's real though and not called Alfie. The house seems strangely quiet...

My dsis had 'my friend john', john isn't played with however he always did loads of crazy stuff which would be put into every conversation with dsis. 'once my friend called john jumped over the roof of the house with a hoover!'.

Her friend John also outran a volcano, swam with 30bajillion jellyfish and touched an avocado!

My 4yo daughter has three imaginary friends called Lily, Lucy and Emily. They sit in front of her while she sits on the loo pretending to be their teacher. She would quite happily sit there for hours chatting away to them if we let her!

DD had an imaginary friend called Cardiff! She lived in a caravan with her grandparents, wore silver boots and had three brothers, Steppy (he first joined us at Tarr Steps), Spitty (he was naughty and spat, apparently) and Sh*y (luckily we ignored him and he soon went away.

We love Moone Boy, it's great! :)

This will totally out me, but DD had an imaginary (although she used the word 'invisible') friend called Keith. Keith was a girl and eventually became Princess Keith of Warwick Castle! She had a place at the table, her own toys (this was all about 4 years ago and I only just last month removed Keith's spade that was hanging from a peg in the garden!) and she even had an imaginary boyfriend - but DD didn't let him in the house as he smoked! One day Keith was no longer mentioned and when I asked DD where she was she told me that Princess Keith had gone on a dig for dinosaur bones and wouldn't be back for a while. I was a bit sad about that tbh!

My youngest daughter had the bad giraffe for a friend, not just a giraffe but a bad one and he was always referred to as "the bad giraffe". He was responsible for all the misdeeds, accidents and downright disobedience in our life. He stayed around for at least 2 years and when I queried why I hadn't heard of him for a while Lucy said "I expect he's grown too tall for our house"

I fondly remember Georges from Paris. He had impeccable manners and was very kind, sweet, and funny. It's a shame he was imaginary because I would quite like to know him now!

I had the purple monster/purple people eater who threatened to eat grownups how we're mean to me. I imagine this was mostly inspired by 'Not Now Bernard'

Were. Bloody autocorrect.

DD2 (2) has just got one today! He's called Arthur and he "walks by he-self with no hands" hopefully that means without holding hands, and "Arthur is a girl and she go-ed to Africa with her family, to the beach. Arthur eated a slug and then Arthur didn't eat a slug" - learnt her lesson there!

My imaginary friend was called Scruffy Puff and he was a boy. This is important because my mum still says it was a girl called Scruffy Pup, but I know it was definitely always a boy and it was Puff not Pup. I loved playing with him and taking him to school and such. My brother and sister would tease me and I would "pretend" he Didn't exist anymore. One day an invitation appeared for Scruffy Puff's birthday. My mum found him a present and a card and took me off to his house (because she knew where he lived.) We went to a street of derelict houses waiting to be knocked down. Unfortunately nobody was home so we posted the card and took the present home. He was my friend for long after I knew he wasn't real but I still look at him as a real childhood friend.

I had an imaginary friend as a (only) child called gangy, my aunt decided I had out grown him and in a bid to get rid of him said that he had wandered off when we went into the city shopping one day. We drove home without him, but when we got home I was talking to him again. She reminded me that he was no longer there and I replied oh no, he just caught the bus home.

I never had an imaginary friend myself - my sister and I are quite close in age, which may have been a factor; at around the prime age I could have dreamt one up I did things like 'go to Africa' with my possessions piled up in my doll's buggy.

My other sister (10 years younger) had a friend called Benny. He was responsible for a standard number of minor misdemeanours, which would delight my Dad.

My DS and DD are a similar age gap to me and my first sister, although DS introduced us to Bubby one day (why do imaginary friends seem to have names that end in an 'ee' sound?). We thought it was perhaps a once off but then he was back and DS would talk of him often, to the extent that DD also involved him in her games in the end. I recorded her on my phone about age 2.5 sitting with her sleeping baby in the kitchen, and being 'grown up'. She would occasionally sip tea and spoke to me of a party. I can't do it justice in print but my favourite bit of banter was when she very knowingly and in a sort of 'check me out for being so hip and like my brother' told me it was a 'Party a Bubby' - mock surprise 'A party at Bubby's?' - 'Yeah!'.

DS has been to Bubby's house a lot to play and will often regale me with stories of him and Bubby driving places or sliding down cushions. Every now and then Bubby gets very tall and also grown up.

DS is 5.5 now but still talks about him every now and then.

My dd1 had an imaginary friend called Alice who only ever appeared at dinner time greedy cow

We had to have a place set out for and leave chair empty etc!

Sometimes Dd1 would look right me through and talk to her - was freaky and I was glad when Alice went to live with and feed off another family

When we moved into a new old house DS mentioned a lady called ivy a few times, he was nearly 3.
We didn't encourage it!

I had an imaginary friend called Ghosty, we'd play loads together. She had an imaginary family, her parents were Mr and Mrs Ahem. Mrs Ahem would allow me to sneak sweets up into my room at night.

Im convinced i have one all the time. I find im always talking to myself or someone and i feel it helps to get through the day. At least i will get the answer i want with questions.

My daughter, now aged 11, had an imaginary friend named Sophie. She was always adamant that Sophie was 'real', declaring that they were twins and therefore looked the same and were always the same age. Sophie slept at the end of my daughter's bed and I had to read them both a bedtime story and give them both a goodnight kiss.

My daughter spent many a happy hour talking to Sophie, telling her stories and playing games. I never had an issue with it until I read an article about how children can sense paranormal activity and imaginary friends are actually ghosts. I can't deny that this didn't freak me out a bit! Sophie was very much a part of the family though as we'd got so used to her 'presence'. When Sophie no longer existed as an imaginary friend any more, she seemed to come back to life as my daughters favourite teddy bear. Sophie the bear is very much loved and goes on day trips, holidays and even accompanied my daughter to school as her lucky mascot when she recently had her SATs. I wonder what will become of Sophie in the future....?

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!