 Well, welcome to the British Library. My name is John Force. I have the pleasure of looking after the events of the library. Really nice to see all of you here today, seeing that we've got someone for every age that is possible to be here today, which is very nice to see. Thank you for choosing to come to the British Library this afternoon. And welcome also to those of you who are watching online, whether you're in one of our public library network friends or watching from home or wherever you may be around the world. So that's very nice to have everybody here today. So today is a special event that we wanted to put on as part of our exhibition programme for, which is over in the main building called Animals, Art, Science and Sound. And some of you may have had a chance to see that. If not, it's on until the end of August. But it's a brilliant show about mostly all drawn from the collections of the British Library. But it's got beautiful pictures. It's got sounds. It's got films. It's got rare documents about how strange creatures were written about and discovered in times gone past, right up to the sort of cutting edge science. So if you like animals and you like beautiful things, it's very much an exhibition not to miss. There are certain days through the rest of the run which are called Pay What You Can Days. So you can pay as little as £1 to see the exhibition, but look on the website for details. So today's event is a special event with one of our best writers about animals, which I know you probably all know very well, is Michael Morbogo. And we're absolutely delighted that he accepted our invitation to come and talk about his lifetime with animals, which we'll be hearing about. After the event, Michael's kindly signed some books which are over in the shop, over in the main building, the one on the left. There's a shop on the right and a shop on the left, so his books are in the left. See, if you would like a signed book, please do head over there afterwards. And we're also thrilled that Michael today will be talking to the wonderful Naomi Wilkinson. I was just saying back in the green room, which is theatrical term, that I grew up watching her with my children, just the right age to watch her fantastic shows. I think of the great milkshake. Then, of course, programmes like Live and Deadly and the award-winning Nightmares of Nature on CBBC. So Naomi's obviously a very accomplished TV presenter and host, but she's also spent a lot of time with her charity such as the Young People's Trust for the Environment, the Woodland Trust, Hearing Dogs for the Deaf and so forth. So, an amazing TV and broadcasting career here, which is very much connected to the animal kingdom. So that really is enough from me. I'm going to hand you over to Naomi and to Michael and enjoy the event. What a very exciting day this is. I know I have been looking forward to this next hour and 15 minutes for a very long time, so I hope you have been too. I've just got a feeling in my bones that we're all going to be very glad that we came here today, because we are going to be hearing words from the mind of an award-winning author, poet, playwright, librettist, former children's laureate... Grandfather. Grandfather. Grandfather. Father. Great grandfather. Great grandfather. I mean it, could you clap please? One numerous prizes, including the Smarties Prize and the Writers Guild Award and the Whitbread Award and the Blue Peter Book Award. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. On and on and on. On and on and on. On and on. In my opinion, has written some of the most special books that have ever been written. We are very privileged today to be in the distinguished company of Michael Mulpergo. Please give him a big hand. Thank you. So I know we've got a lot of excited people here today, along with me, who will have lots of questions for you a little bit later on. So I want to say a big warm welcome to everyone. Thank you so much for making the effort to travel here today. I know it's not always easy to give up your weekends. We really, really appreciate you coming and hope you will enjoy it. And as John said, we also want to welcome everybody who is watching online today. We've got people in Cambly and Leatherhead, Dawking, Wakefield, Tumbridge Wells, all joining us. So it really is lovely to have your company. Thanks so much for tuning in and joining us here. So I've got a load of questions for you, Michael. Fine, far away. We're pleased to know we're going to have to talk quick to get through them all. But we will also be opening up the questions to the audience as well. So get your questions ready and to remind us so anyone watching online, you can fill in a form that's under the little video window. So you just need to click on that form below where you're watching us right now. And then you can send us your questions and we'll ask as many of those to Michael as we can too. So this session, it's titled, A Lifetime with Animals. And just like me, you love animals, you love the natural world. What is it about nature that you love the most? Well, it's very difficult, Regus. I suppose a lot of the love that you have for the world around you comes from when you're quite small. And I was lucky, I grew up, part of my childhood at least, in Essex, on the coast of Essex, in a little village called Bradwell, which is just a mile or so from the sea. So I would go off on walks and cycle rides down the little roads towards, there's a wonderful chapel there of St Peter's, very ancient sects and chapel. And then you're on the seawall and you can cycle a walk down the seawall and it's a great brown soupy North Sea rolling in and the wind coming. And you see hares on the way. And so I first saw creatures like hare and pheasants in the fields. And very soon got to be sitting down and just watching. And then going along on my walk and when you got down to the sea, there were the sea birds. In other words, all the way round on this walk I used to do, which is about three miles, I suppose, from the age of about seven, eight. It versed me, if you like, in nature. I didn't look at it and think, isn't that beautiful? It was just to me the world around me. I felt really part of it, which was, I knew it was important to me. I knew it was like breathing air to me. And then much, much later on when I grew up a little bit, enough to get married, which I did. I met someone who also had had this childhood experience, but down in Devon. And she had been there as a seven-year-old child. I think she was sent down there by her daddy, who was a great publisher and a man called Alan Lane, who began Penguin Books. And I think Claire had, I think she was quite a naughty child. And I think they wanted her out of the way during holiday times. So they would send her down to a friend of theirs who kept a pub in Devon. It's a wonderful thing to do with a child. Send her to a pub for two weeks. Well, that's what she did. She went to stay with this auntie Peggy, she called her husband, Shawna, who loved her and looked after for two or three weeks when she was little. And every holiday she'd go back because she loved it so much and she loved it because of the freedom. Because these two people who kept the pub and didn't really want a seven-year-old around their feet all the time, said to her every morning after breakfast, off you go. So she put on her wellies and went walking. Well, it was 1940s, early 50s. There was hardly any cars anywhere. People were not anxious about children walking off. She just walked out through the graveyard of the church. And you may think that's a bit not for a small child it isn't gloomy because of all the creatures that you find in there. There'd be slow worms, there'd be lizards, there'd be flowers. It's just a wonderful, wild place to walk through. And then she was out on the road and she was going up farm tracks and meeting farmers. And they'd say, come in and give her a sticky bun and lemonade. And then she'd get to groom the horses and get to feed the lambs. And it became this wonderland for her, really. So when later on she became a teacher and I became a teacher, we realised that in any class of children, almost anywhere, half of the children never had had this kind of experience. And that education was a great deal more than sitting there boring over books and passing exams, which we all know. But we knew it quite early as young teachers. You have to educate the whole child. And we thought this was very important. So we began a charity called Farms for City Children, which has been going on for 50 years and we've had about 100,000 children. They come from cities all over, many, many of them from London. 35 at a time with their teachers who are amazing. They get on a coach and they come down and they spend a week of their young lives on a farm, which of course they never forget. So they like it all. And they do come across the difficult things. They see lambs born. They see lambs born dead. They see the hard side. You know, when you have to go out and feed the sheep anyway, when it's snowy or when it's windy and you really want to stay inside, well actually the sheep matter more than you do. That's what you learn. So all these lessons are being learnt. They learn where their food comes from. They learn that their work matters, their self-esteem rises like crazy. And for teachers that's a wonderful thing to be able to witness. So in a way it was just growing into nature and then finding that we were part of the business of educating for nature as well. In a time and in a world as we all know sitting here when the world is under terrible threat. We didn't know this 50 years ago. We really didn't. The ignorance was blissful. Whether on farming or anywhere else, we didn't think about the diesel fumes coming out of the back of a tractor. We just thought the tractor looked very jolly. It was old MacDonald had a farm type idea. Well we know that there's much more to it than that just as we do with city living. It's not that the one is better than the other. We've all been polluting the planet and doing terrible damage, all of us. But we've learnt, whether we've learnt in time, we shall see. Anyway, why am I whitted on? Why do you just sit there letting me whitter on? Oh it's fantastic. Proper children interrupt people who are getting boring. Do you understand that? Do you have a favourite animal? Elephant. Why? That came out quickly, didn't it? Well because when I was again very, well he's hanging up when you're very, very little. When I was little and we lived in London around Oath Court, my favourite thing was to go to the zoo with my two aunts. I had two aunts who treated us like their own children, very sweet. And they would take us to the zoo and treat us. And the biggest treat was to go to London Zoo where you could actually ride an elephant. Imagine that. You got up there and you rode this elephant around the place. And I remember to this day standing there underneath an elephant looking up into the eye of an elephant and feeling the way she looked back at you. And then you could touch her skin, which was just the roughest thing you ever touched in your life. And then the trunk would come round. And it was just the most fascinating thing. But everything was slow about them. They created a great piece around them. So I've loved them ever since. I think it was also because I was reading a wonderful story by Roger Kipling. It's called The Elephant's Child. Who's read it here? You know The Elephant's Child and you're a properly educated child. That's wonderful. Would you clap this child? For those of you who haven't read it, it's Kipling it is best actually just playing with language, which he does. You know, the great grey, green, greasy, limpopo river all covered around with fever trees and there's a kid who just sort of listens to this language. But it's a wonderful story for children because finally it's about a grown-up's punishing children. There's this little child who has aunts who forever are sort of hitting it and telling it to stop doing this and stop doing that. Eventually the elephant gets really fed up with the family and goes off on his wonders but what you don't know and you know is that elephants originally didn't have trunks. They had snouts and off this elephant goes and it comes to this and one of the reasons the adults really disliked this elephant he's always asking questions and off this elephant goes and finds this animal to ask a question and eventually it comes to this animal that looks a bit like a log lying by the river and asks us a question and the creature which is a crocodile says come a little closer, come a little closer, come quite here, come a little closer and gets hold of the snout and pulls and pulls and pulls and pulls which is how come elephants have trunks. I wish I had invented that story. It's so good. What to do with an elephant's trunk when you go back home and you whack all the people who you've been whacking all your life sort of what children want to do really when they grow up. We might be a bit of an envious of that one but you've written some pretty impressive stories about animals yourself. How many books do you think you've written about animals or with animals? I did what they call research this morning because I knew you were going to ask a question something like that so I actually wrote them out here. I sat down, this is called an iPad children even great-grandfathers can have iPads it's quite, I don't know how to work the silly thing but anyway, here. I'll say a title and see if they know what the animal is. It's very, very difficult, it's very, very difficult here. You've got to just tell me the animal that's about it. You ready? Butterfly lion. No. Have you read it? She's got it, she's got a copy right here. Wonderful child over there. Actually buys books which is really good for my pension. Thank you. Then there's one called Shadow. Stop shouting at me. Quite right, dog, absolutely right. Born to run. Yep. Very difficult one coming up now. Elephant in the garden. Here's one you will not get, it's very difficult. The Dancing Bear. Yes. A narwhal. Which story? Who said why the whales came? There's someone there, really bright. Thank you very much. Thank you. Why the whales came? Little foxes. They're so bright these two. Shut up, I don't want you to do any more. Now, here's an interesting one which no one will get. Has anyone ever read alone on a wild wide sea? What's the bird? In the story. It's called an albatross. Here's a series of difficult ones. You won't get this one. Warhorse. I'm reading it. You're reading it. You never, really? Have you finished it? It's rubbish, I shouldn't bother. Anyway, here's another one. Very difficult one. One bat goes walkabout. The Silver Swan. Yes, it's so nice to have an intelligent audience. What kind of monkeys are they? What's your name? You're completely brilliant. A clap, please. When fishes flew. A fish, do you know what kind of fish? Have you read it already? Can't bear children who surprise me. Here's one. You won't get this. Flamingo boy. Yes, yes, yes. I did a lot of this. Another one. I did a lot of this. There were 40 titles. They were the ones with animals at the heart of them anyway. So a lot, a lot, yes. You often write your books from the perspective of the animal. From the animal's point of view. Find that something easy to do? It's not easy. It's very difficult to do. But I love doing it because I found it the most convincing way of telling a story. I wanted to tell. I suppose the best thing to talk about is Warhorse because more people would have read this than put the book down. I'm just trying to say something. Have you got to the end of it yet? Have you finished it yet? So we can't do any spoilers. All right, won't. But what you will know, what you will know absolutely already is that the horse tells the story except for just the beginning where it's me who telling it. But then it goes into the horse's voice. But there's an important reason that I had to write it that way and it's this. I met a man in my village pub in Devon years and years ago. We're talking 50 years ago or something. An old man and I happened to know because I've been told, we just moved into the village. But I've been told that he and two other men in the village. There were three of these people who were octogenarians, 80-year-olds, who had been to the First World War. Now I'd read when I was little poetry about the First World War and I'd read stories about the First World War. It interests me, not because I like war, but because I rather like peace and it seemed to me to be the war which would stop as they all believed it would stop all other wars which of course it didn't do. Anyway, what I'd never done though, I'd read the poems and I'd read the stories but I'd never met anyone who'd been there. He was sitting there by the fire in the pub, Wilf Ellis he was called. I just sat down at a beer myself and I didn't know him. He hardly knew me. I think we both knew we existed, that was all. I said to him, Wilf I was told you went to the First World War and he goes, yep, they don't talk much in Devon. I said, how old were you? 17? Long pauses, long silences. Then he suddenly started talking. He said, I was there with Orses. Then he went on. That man talked, I swear to you, nearly an hour and a half, two hours, something like that, on and on about how it had been to be 17 and leave this tiny little place in the middle of Devon where they'd known nothing but peace for a thousand years, put on a uniform, go and fight an enemy he'd never even met a German. He didn't know Germans and he was fighting them and he told me the dreadful things that he'd seen and the hopes that he had. But the thing he told me which impressed me most was that his best friend was his horse. And I thought this sentimental tosh to start with and then he said, no, no, he's like he's reading my thoughts. He said, no, no. I mean it. He said, the thing is that what you couldn't do with your pals is to talk about what really mattered to you so you couldn't talk about what had happened yesterday that you never want to think again for the rest of your life. You couldn't talk about the fear that's inside you. You couldn't talk about the longing to go home. You couldn't talk about any of that stuff because everyone was going through it. But he said, I go to the horse lines at night to feed my horse and I put my hand on his neck and I talk into his ear about all the things that troubled me. And then he said something which really surprised me. He said, do you know? They listened. That horse listened. Horses listened and not stupid. And I took that on board. I knew they weren't stupid because my wife loves horses and rode them and had a very strong relationship with them but I hadn't realised the intensity of it for these people. And so I thought when I came home I want to write a story about a horse in the First World War and I knew why. It was because I didn't want to write a story which was from the British side or the German side or the American side or the Belgian side or the French side. I wanted to write a story told from the point of view of a neutral observer. And if I had a horse that was brought up on my farm in Devon, which I did in my head, and was taken away, bought away by the army to join the British cavalry, it could start the war as a British cavalry horse, therefore listening to the whole British take on things, go across to France after being trained on Salisbury Plain, go across on a boat, get off loaded and then walk into this war. And I thought let's have Joey captured by the Germans quite soon, which happened a lot, and then used for something different, not a cavalry horse anymore. Have Joey used for pulling guns, for pulling ambulances and now a German take on how the war is. And then I thought well after that maybe Joey could be wintered on a French farm and be connected to the people on whose land and around whose country the war is actually being fought, the civilians. So that was the reason I had to write it in the first person. There is another very famous book, one of you can tell me, a very famous book, which is written by a horse in the first person. What is it? Black Beauty. Yes, Anna Sewell wrote Black Beauty. Again with purpose, she wrote it a long, long time ago now, because she thought the way animals were being treated was very cruel, the bits they had to wear when they were pulled around the place. And she wanted people to realise that horses have feelings. And I picked that up from her. It's important that you put in this book what it is like from the horses point of view. So, yeah, it was difficult. But once I got into it, once I got into the first person and became the horse, it was fine. And I wrote it very fast. But with every book it's the same. You have to get into the part. You have to play the parts you're writing. It's like acting really. I should have been an actor really. I would have been George Clooney, really. But it never happened. No, my mum was an actor. My daddy was an actor. They both went to drama school here in London at Radar. They married whilst they were on tour doing things like that, acting around the place just before the Second World War. Acting is in my blood. I never dared do it. You've got to be truly brave to be an actor. Imagine that going on the stage in front of all those people. I mean, this is a doddle compared to that. I've got someone to help me. I've got no lines to learn. If I mess up, I mess up. But if you do it in a theatre and all those other actors relying on you and my goodness, the expectation is dreadful. I was too much for a coward. But I should love to have done it, joking apart. I'd love to be an actor, which is why I like reading stories now a lot and performing it. I enjoy it. I enjoy it a lot. And I should have done it. I would have been better than George Clooney. Anyway, sorry. So for every animal that you write a story about, do you spend time studying them then so that you can get into their world? I try to. If I don't know it, I try to find out. If I can talk to you a bit about this book, which is in front of me now, which I noticed, who was holding up the Butterfly Lion, who was it about to go? Anyway, the Butterfly Lion, I wrote, it's always because circumstances, stuff happens and then you meet someone who knows what you need to know. And with the Butterfly Lion, I went to a festival, a book festival at Hay. Some of you wouldn't have been to Hay first of all at all. Well, if I were invited, I'd go. It's a lovely place to go. And the town is now full of book shops and writers have got nothing to do with their time when they're not actually doing their talking. So you walk around the town, which is fine because there are lots of book shops. And I was walking past this book shop and in the window I saw an extraordinary book. It was a photographic book there, right in the middle of the window, and it was called The White Lions of Timbavati, where the great white lion on the front cover, a photograph of. And I thought, I didn't know there were such things as white lions. So I went into the shop and I said to the man, because it's a second hand book shop, I went in and said, could I have a look at the book? He said, yep, I took it down. And I opened it up and it was just full of these amazing photographs of white lions and a seriously boring text. Because it basically was a study of a pride of white lions in South Africa with all the facts and the details, all the stuff you don't want to know what was really wonderful with these amazing photographs. So I looked at it and it said on the front, four pounds. It's the best four pounds I've ever spent. I took the book back and I don't know, a week or so later I was on a train going from London down to Exeter. And I was looking at this book and looking at these photographs. I hadn't stopped looking at it. I was looking, looking, looking. And you know what it's like on a train? You're reading it and the train comes to a stop. And you know exactly what everyone does. The train comes to a stop, you go, you know, where the hell are we? Because it's always in the middle of nowhere. And this was in the middle of nowhere. And I looked on on the hillside in the distance. There was an extraordinary white horse carved out of the chalk, all the way near a place called Westbury. Those of you who know what I'm talking about will know I am not lying. It's there. And so I'm going, white lion, white horse, white lion, white horse. And I knew I had to write about a white lion on a hillside. Somehow I was going to write about it. So I thought to myself, okay, okay, what do I know about lions? Nothing. Except I'd seen them in circuses and zoos when I was little. And then, totally different incident. A few weeks later I was in Dublin at another book fair. Talk, talk, talk, talk. Anyway, it had finished and this is interesting. The children weren't like it, but because they don't like these sort of stories, they're going to tell the grown-ups in the roof. I came out of the last breakfast, who are the writers around, and other people there. And I came out of the breakfast room towards the left. As I was getting the left, I saw this unbelievably beautiful woman standing next to me. And I looked at her and I thought, I've been in love with you all my life. I'm married by now with three children, all right? I knew that, and I knew that I knew her face, but I could not remember her name. I got on the lift with her. I said, timorously, because I was just, my heart was going like this. I said, what floor do you want? She said four, please. She's got a beautiful voice too. So I pressed one. And when we got to floor number three, I remembered who she was. She was an actress called Virginia McKenna. Those of you sitting here will know the great film that she made, which was called Born Free, and it was all about Lyons. So I had to say something to her because I'm pathetic. I said, I think your Born Free foundation is wonderful. I wanted to say more, but it's all I could get out. And she said, oh, it's very kind of you. I think she got out of the lift as quickly as possible. I went back to my room and I did a clever thing, a clever thing. On the bed, there happened to be a book lying down there which I've been talking about on the bed called The Dancing Bear, which is all about a bear who gets put in a cage. I thought she'll like this book. So I wrote in it to Virginia McKenna, love, and I meant it, Michael Morpogo. And I gave it to her, not to her, because I'm shy. I went downstairs to the lady in reception. I said, Virginia McKenna is staying there. Could you give her this book and it fled? And went back to my wife and my children where I confessed that I'd met the love of my life in a lift in Dublin, which I think she thought was really boring. But I got a letter a week later from this Virginia McKenna who said, I loved your bear book. Of course, what I know, she wrote the letter in Lyons. If you ever want to write a book about a lion, please let me know and I'll help to answer your question. That's what I did. So I got closer to Lyons as you could get from anyone because she knew so much about it. She gets any literature, photographs, and anyway. So the truth is, I do want research, I can. I do rely on luck to keep me going. I think a lot of writers do. You want stories to sort of grow as you're making them because you meet someone and it takes you off in a different direction. And I like that because if you do that then people who are reading it won't guess where you're going because I didn't know I was going. So a lot of your books are for children and you love wildlife. Why do you think it's important to connect children with wildlife from an early age? Well, I think, on again, it was going back to that experience I had. I knew how much it meant to me. And being a teacher, I taught for eight years at the Colface. There are only teachers here by the way. Higher, higher. Put your hands up. Be proud of it. You're never proud enough teachers. Give them a clap, will you people, please. That's why you go into teaching finally. Well, I went into teaching and most teachers are saying it's because you know what children need when they're young is an enrichment. They need to get to know themselves and the world about them as well as they possibly can because they're going to go out there to face a world which is not easy. And so the education has to be broad as it is deep. And I found that really hard to do just in the primary school where I was working, which is why we set up this charity which I've mentioned. And nature seems to me to be the most elemental way of doing this. You know, we are creatures. Finally, that's what we are. We might give ourselves all sorts of pretensions, have libraries and things like that, write books and things like that. But finally, finally, we're creatures on this earth and we have to share it with other people. We made us such a really bad job of it. And I think it's important to educate children to feel that they belong and to belong to what is beautiful, what is worthwhile is really important. But if they come out of school positive thinking they can change the world but they can make the best of things, you know. You've got to come out feeling you can do stuff. My education gave me, I was very lucky. I came out of a school where there are all sorts of things wrong with it. But one of the really good things about it is it gave you the opportunity to find a talent which you could exploit. I like music, I love music. I'm not a good musician. I've got grade one violin. You see children, this is what people do. When you've failed in life people like it and they clap. You know, they even laugh at you. It's a serious thing getting grade one violin and here's the thing. I only got a pass. No one only gets a pass at grade one violin and this was after six years of trying. So I was not skillful but I went to this school where we had a brilliant teacher of music. And he was a wonderful choir master and I had a decent enough voice, not a great voice but I liked singing so I was in this choir. And I learned more through being in that choir than almost anything else at school except rugby. I should have played for England just like I should have been George Clooney but that didn't work out either. But I loved doing it which meant I felt I could do it. It's business of knowing you can do stuff. You can do stuff, you know. The world is not just for clever people. Absolutely. So what do you feel is the best way to foster that interest in young people? Well books are a big help. When you read any kind of a book what you do is learn about the world about you. You know, it opens your eyes, it opens your heart and makes you want to read another book. And so this is what happens. And you also learn the most important thing I think that children have to learn, which is empathy with whatever it is that you're talking about. And empathy with the world around you is really important. You have to know that other creatures count, the trees count, what we eat in the fields. Everything counts. And that you can learn from books hugely. But you can also learn it from first hand experience. You need both really. But most of the books I've written I think have an element of my hope, expanding the horizons, both of me in the first place, finding out more about it. And also of the people who are going to read it. I mean, looking down and glancing down, I don't know if this is a work. Has anyone read Kenski's Kingdom here? Well that's not enough. See, hopeless audiences. You never told me they were going to be so pig ignorant. I bet they never seen Shakespeare either. Never, not at all. Anyway, Kenski's Kingdom I wrote. Not, I'm going to sit down and write it because I wanted children to expand their knowledge. But it happens because it expanded my knowledge doing it. All I did, I listened to the radio a lot. I find radio wonderful. And I was listening at some point, I don't know what it was 30 years ago. And I heard quite early in the morning a piece on the radio about a Japanese soldier from the Second World War who had just been discovered on an island in the Pacific where he had hidden away completely alone for 27 years. Now, Robinson Crusoe did it for four. This guy had, and that was in fiction a bit. And this one, 27 years. And he'd been found funny enough by some other Japanese people on a yacht who took him home. I just thought it was amazing. 27 years on an island. How would he have survived? What would he have done? And I went to a drinks party. Children, are you listening? Because this will happen to you. This is all part of your education. It's what you're being educated for. When you grow up to be a grown-up person, you will go to a drinks party. And when you go to a drinks party, listen because it's fantastic. It's what the whole of education is for. You end up in a room with people you don't want to be with. You have a drink you don't want to want. You have things called bits which you don't want to eat. You're forced to be there for about two hours. It's really good fun growing up. It really is. I was at just such an occasion. And do you know what happens? All the adults know this in the room. When you go to a thing like that, you always find yourself. I do not know how with the most boring person in the whole world. I was actually at this... My wife loves parties like this. She's chatting away, happy as you like. And I was hating it. I retreated like this near to the door and tried to indicate to my wife that I want. Anyway, she wasn't having it. She wasn't having it. She wasn't even looking at me. Anyway, I was waiting the earth. And this man comes up to me and he says, Hello? Quite nice. When you were at these parties, children, later on, what will happen is that you will be stood there thinking now, what do I say? All adults say the same thing when they can't think of anything else to say. Remember this? They say, So what do you do then? So I said to this man, So what do you do then? And his response made me write this book. This is what's lovely about it. He looked and sounded terribly boring and he wasn't. He said, well, five years ago, I don't know anything now much. I'm just trying to find my feel. After coming back from sailing around the world for five years, I said, excuse me. I was going in teaching every day. I don't want to know people about sailing around the world. I said, how come? How come? He said, well, five years ago, I lost my job and my business and life wasn't good and I got depressed and my wife said to me, one day we cannot go on like this. Why do we not take this opportunity to do exactly what we've always wanted to do? He said, well, you know, we want to sail around the world. You've always said this. It's your dream. Let's sail the house, sail the car, go around the world. So they did. And they sailed around the world. And I'm listening to this conversation and in my head I'm thinking sailing around the world, Japanese soldier, island, Pacific, 27 years later, boat, how can boat meet island? All that sort of thing was going on in my head. And I'm thinking, oh Lord, what am I going to do about this now? What am I going to do when I... I said, oh, were you alone on the boat? I said, no, no, no. And our son, really? I said, anything else? Dog, son, dog, boat. It was all coming to it. And I wrote this story, which finally is about a boy. I've got new boys here. Like you, this boy was much nicer. And this boy, this boy was with the dog on the deck. Mum was downstairs not feeling very well. So Dab was downstairs with mum. And he was 12 years old. And he was steering the boat. And the dog was there. And the dog goes forward. And shouldn't have been there. Didn't have a line on. The boy goes forward to pick up the dog. The wind takes his head. He falls in the sea. Wet. Sharks. Swim, swim, swim. Island, island, island. So he ends up on the island with a dog. And a football, by the way. And a Japanese soldier. So he's got a Japanese soldier from another time. And another culture. Meeting a boy of today. And they've got to share the island. Well, you've got to be joking. He just wants to light a fire. So he can find his mum again on the boat. So he can bring the ship back, a boat back. And the Japanese man just wants to be left alone in his kingdom. And doesn't want to be bothered anymore. So what do you learn from that as a child? From the story? What do you learn as an adult? You learn about how two cultures get on together. And how they find out that you need each other. And you can support each other. That's really the moral of the story is that. I'm not going to tell you the rest otherwise you won't buy the book. It's at all the book shops for about 25 pounds. Anyway, the truth is, if you learn things from these books, I learned more about Japanese people doing that than I ever learned in the rest of my life by writing it. I went to the school in London when I was writing it. I couldn't work out names at all. I didn't know what to call the boy. The boy was a real problem. What am I going to call this boy? It took me a week to discover what the names should be. Names are important. Anyway, a week later, hard work, I thought I'll call the boy Michael. I'm that bright. So Michael, I got that. So then I was going up to the school in London to do a signing. And sort of kids wanted to have their books signed. I looked up and there was this big boy who looked Japanese. So I said to him, what's your name? And he goes, Kensuke. I said, sorry. He said, Kensuke. I said, could you spell it for me please? K-E-N-S-U-K. I said, that's Kensuke. He said, no, it's not. It's Kensuke. It's my name and I'm Japanese and I should know. I said, it's a beautiful name. I like that name. Could I borrow it? He said, before I said put in a book. He said, would you give me a copy? So I said yes. Anyway, so I pinched his name. So I got the Japanese boy's name. Now he's the Japanese man. I got the boy's name. Dog. What do I call a dog? Well, you know what comes into mind? Rover, Sally, Bob. All sorts of stuff like that. I don't want a boring name. I was with these kids on the farm. A bunch of kids from Bermondsey in London. And it was the first night we were there on a, what was it? It was a Friday night in November dark. Now they do not do dark in Bermondsey. You've got street lights in this place. In Devon, there's not a street light to be seen. So we're walking down this pitch black lane. And this boy is coming really close. He's 11 years old. He's very big. And he's been quite brash, but he's not brash anymore. He doesn't like the dark. And he's walking really, really close. And my wife's dog is coming along behind. And this boy looks down at me and says, what's that? He says, it's a dog. He said, yeah, but what sort of dog is that? So I said, it's a larcha. And he goes, larcha? And I said, yes, a bit cross. He's sort of on the go really. And he said, what's it called? What's that dog called? I said, it's called Bursalet. And he goes, Bursalet? Now I am cross. So I said to him, have you got a dog? Yeah. Bingoing that? Our station? So I said, what's it called? And he goes, Stella Artois. You can't make stuff up. You really can't. So you read that book and the dog is called Stella Artois. And this whole weaving of stuff is what fascinates me about it. And by the way, they've just made, so that you can all know this. Roundabout, I don't know when it's going to be Sunday or Sunday or Christmas. They've made the most amazing, amazing animated film, feature film of this book. It's taken 22 years to make. Wonderful film company. The same people who make Snow Man, that's all I mean. And they're really good at what they've done. Anyway, it's beautiful, unbelievably well drawn animation. And the music is lovely and script by a man called Frank Cotrow Boyce. So it's been a real pleasure. So those of you people who haven't bothered to read the book, go and see the movie. Quickly read the book and then go and see the movie. Read the book and then go and see the movie. Is there a creature that you haven't written a book about yet that you'd like to? Spiders. I don't really want to write about spiders. I don't like spiders very much. I don't think I'm terrified of them, but I don't like them. I think I have to have some kind of affinity. I'm not sure there's... Imagine the animals I love. I've written a book about unicorns, for instance. So I'm fine about that. But I can't relate. I can relate to butterflies. I can relate to beetles. I love having beetles walking across your hand. I love that. But I don't worry about spiders. I'm not coping with them really. I shouldn't say that out loud, but I don't like spiders. So we might never get a book about a spider then? You'll never get a book about a spider. Before we open it up for questions from the audience, is there anything you'd like to read yesterday? You mentioned trees. I don't know how important trees are. Well, they're important for all of us, as we know. They're important for planning. I've just written this book, which is called My Heart Was a Tree, which is... I think what I will do, actually, is I'll read one poem by a great poet, and then I'll read one of mine, which is just mine. But I haven't done that. I'm lucky. Down my lane in Devon lived a really great poet called Ted Hughes. He was a great mentor, really, for me. I have two mentors in my life as a writer. One is Robert Louis Stevenson, who sadly did not live down my lane, and Ted Hughes, who did. We would show each other manuscripts that we'd written. It was very good to have a companion. He was a great writer. It helped me a lot at a certain time. He wrote this, I think it's his best poem. Certainly I like it more than any other poem that he wrote. It's called My Own True Family, and it's suddenly become really important now. Then I'll read you one of mine, which will make your mind up. But this is his. My Own True Family. Once I crept in an oak wood, I was looking for a stag. I met an old woman there, all knobbly stick and rag. She said, I have your secret here inside my little bag. Then she began to cackle, and I began to quake. She opened up a little bag, and I came twice awake, surrounded by a staring tribe and me tied to a stake, they said. We are the oak trees, and your own true family. We are chopped down, we are torn up, you do not blink an eye, unless you make a promise now. Now you are going to die. Whenever you see an oak tree felled, swear now you will plant too. Unless you swear, the black oak bark will wrinkle over you and root you among the oaks where you were born, but never grew. This was my dream. Beneath the boughs, the dream that altered me, when I came out of the oak wood back to human company, my walk was the walk of a human child, but my heart was a tree. So that in a way is the theme I suppose of this book, and I'll read you one of mine which is, I like it because I wrote it. I'm going to just do something. It brings a bit of drama into the whole thing. Do you want me to do anything? That's the drama. I wish you to watch that chair while I read my poem. Back at home, I have a chair not at all like that. So why have I put that there? I have no idea. My chair at home is made all around here of driftwood. It's made on an island called Orkney where they don't grow trees because the wind blows so hard that no tree will stand up. The wood they get gets washed up on the shores, driftwood. And they go and pick it up and they make wonderful chairs out of it. And the back is of rushes and the seat is of rushes and there's wonderful wood here and wooden legs. And I love it. I absolutely love this chair. It's the most comfortable chair I have. I bought it off a man who was making it in the back of his garage in Orkney. And I've written this whole it would be good to write the story of one tree and how there are several lives in the life of a tree, both as a growing tree and as wood. This is what I did. I called it Driftwood. This chair was born where I was born in the forests of Nova Scotia about a thousand years ago maybe more, but who's counting? This chair has had as many lives as a cat. I know because I am this chair. I made this chair what it is, what I am. This is the history of a chair of me. Call it my autobiography. First life which began the day I fell from a red oak tree, dropped and bounced into leaves, for days waiting, but didn't know for what nor why, until a Jay came down, hopped over to me, picked me up in his beak and off we flew. He buried me deep in the forest floor, covered me up, hid me from squirrels but must have forgotten all about me about where I was, which was fine for me, as you'll see because I got to have a second life which was to be the luckiest life of my life dormant for a while until there came a spring that warned me through, that gave me longing a longing for life that grew inside me like a burning hope like a faithful promise a green shoot broke me out of earth at last and began to make a sapling then a tree of me dear nibbled elsewhere and let me grow, grow strong and tall up towards light and sun towards a third life which was long as seasons came and seasons went falling of snow, followed falling of leaves till the sun came each spring to warm me through and I grew ever taller ever stronger, ever older branches spread bark thickened roots deepened winter blew in did its worst to all of us every year lightning crackled and struck but I lived to grow old I dropped more acorns shed more leaves stood there still till wearied and weakened by the passing of age I came to my fourth life which I knew had to come one day as it must to us all it took a great and terrible storm to tear up my roots and blow me down long, long I lay there and thought of the forest life I'd had of the bears that stood up to scratch their backs against my trunk of the squirrels who made their homes every year in me but that was all over now that was all done all I could do was lie there and wonder if my family would still be standing live long after me I hope there might be not an end but a new life now for me a fifth life which there was but a change entirely of life the end of me as tree the beginning of me as wood I remember how the loggers found me walked and talked around and about me climbed and clambered all over me how they brought out their sores and took off my branches and trimmed my trunk how horses hauled me away through the forest floated me down swirling rapids to lie there in a boatyard to dry where the people came to admire me children to play and climb on me you'll make the finest boat they said patting me so began my sixth life as a fishing boat I was to be mast, keel, hull and decking too they stripped off my bark and soared me up they planked me and planed me and made me boat sky blue I was painted sky they called me I was pride of the port the day I set sail the band played they bedeck me with flags they cheered and they clapped their sky and their joy I was as I sailed out into wind and waves that heaved me and creaked me but I'd been a tree I knew how to be strong wind and sea were to be all the same to me in my seventh life also I thought I was the biggest fastest boat they'd ever had everyone said so I was sky I was proud to be me to be loved as I was this was the life for me the life could possibly be I was a lucky boat too the fish and the gulls seemed to love me follow me so we filled our nets and trip after trip came safely home our barrels full fish to eat, fish to sell sky had done it again happy days, happy years for them for me unsinkable they told me I was and I thought so too till the day we hit the iceberg and my eighth life began on our way home sailing along nicely wind behind us harbour and home in sight but iceberg was waiting lurking and seen sharp sliced us open below the waterline left us sinking they came out to save us rode out through the waves and save us they did everyone on board not a soul lost but they could not save me drifted me in dashed me on rocks broke me in pieces sky was lost I was lost which brings me to my ninth life of flotsam and jetsam most of me sunk except the keel tide took me out what was left of me and floated me out to sea where wild storms took me and tossed me and turned me brought me at last to a strange treeless shore washed me up on a sandy beach in amongst the carry shells she was searching for carries and found me there the remnants of the keel of me took me in dried me and cared for me carved me fondly sanded me too made an awkney chair of me sits on me and tells her children the story of me as driftwood where I came from how I came to be here and chair told them all the nine lives of me I listen too as they do over and over again I love her story my story hope you have too I wish we had four hours I just want to listen to Michael reading all afternoon do we have any questions for Michael? we do we'll bring a microphone over to you hi I just wanted to start off by saying it's a pleasure to meet you my question is is to more so to settle a debate do you think the work of an author is in their brevity or in their ability to use a lot of words to feed the imagination I'm going to come closer to you because I think I understood I'm nearly 80 my hearing isn't brilliant you stay there I'm coming I tell you what confuses me it's the microphone so here I am if I can't hear now I'm not worth it coming yes put the microphone away just say did you hear that everyone you mean you could all hear it then I'm going deaf it's such a good question thank you for puzzling me I tell you what I'm thinking as I get older more and more and more is that I've always written quite short books I know JK Rowling you probably realise that and I can't do Philip Bulman he's brilliant no I am brief I've only recently in the last two years started writing poetry and learned how to be even more brief and the more I do it the more I think that that is the height of literary talent is when you can do it with as few words as possible that's what I'm thinking and I've wished and I'm being serious now I wish I'd started writing poetry 50 years ago I think I've found a new way of speaking which is clearer to me are you a writer? thought you might be are you a poet? she lies as well then does she? I think it's really important you've got to lie to be a writer that's what storytelling is all about but you do write for yourself you like writing well I do it informally too that's okay right far away anyone else? thank you for your question by the way sorry you've already had question from that family but go on then yes it's a pleasure to listen to you I'm a big fan all right no problem I'm a big fan I grew up reading your books so it's a pleasure meeting you in real life my question is just I think while you're speaking it picked my interest you mentioned that as you travel and you go to these fairs you're inspired to expand your stories and sort of come up with different your story takes different turns different threads is there any story perhaps that you've started but you never got to finish that you just sort of put on the shelf that never developed into anything not anymore I told you Ted Hughes is my mentor one thing he told me which I really followed was this I was halfway through Warhorse it was and I got stuck and I thought I got this thing called writer's block which by the way doesn't exist but I didn't know it at the time and I was sitting here I was having dinner and he said as you're going and I said well not really well I sort of got stuck and he said he could be quite sharp he said what do you mean stuck so I said well I just I can't see my way forward through it and he said well you shouldn't have started then should you but actually there's a real truth in it what I'd rushed into it too much and one thing I learned from that conversation was to have a really long dream time as I call it before every single book take your time to think it through to research it to talk around it to find out for stuff to happen that enriches it then enriches it if you push it that's when you'll come to the the crevasse and you can't jump across it and I think I learned more from that conversation these little conversations with other people it stayed in my head and he always said this as well he said you've got to finish that book he said if you don't finish it then the next one is going to be even more difficult to start let alone finish you because writing and he's dead right about this I've learnt it since is massively about confidence it's hugely about believing you can do it and when I was teaching one of the things I love to do is to teach creative writing to write with the children to try to get them going it's really important and I did it with them and that was really important because if you put a blank piece of paper in front of a child and it happens still makes me grind my teeth to think of it and you tell them they've got to do it in 45 minutes and all this rubbish proper writers don't do it like that they do it when they feel it's the right moment to write you can force the right moment too much and it won't come and it won't come so I learnt from that conversation whatever you do finish it he said you've got to finish and put a full stop and even if it's not good the full stop is really good because you've completed it it's a done thing and you can read it through and it's never going to be Hughes or Shakespeare or Pullman it's never going to be like that but it can be the best you can do and that's what he was trying and he was very good with the unwriters he could have understood that nervousness that you have of not being able to do things and as a teacher and all the teachers will know this and the great thing you're there for is to enable children to feel they can do it that's what's important really and it's not just for the clever I think if I had quite enough questions in that family thank you very much for answering that you're going to have to pay extra Michael you've worked with Quentin Blake I'm just wondering how that relationship works with an illustrator and I think certainly when my daughters are growing up they love the images as much as the prose I've been lucky I've worked with really extraordinary people who've enriched the books that I've written and he's certainly one of them he's got a way of telling his I'm using this word telling his drawings in such a way that no one else does that extraordinary spidery way he has just with two two sort of lines somehow makes a face or makes a cloak I find it quite extraordinary he's really easy to work with he's a very gentle man a very kind man very hard working as well you feel when you're working with him that you're working with someone with a considerable genius in the way of being he's been a marvellous influence he was first children's laureate and there was no doubt that when we started a programme that he was going to be the first one he's sort of towered if you like in children's literature and best of all he manages to do something that's really difficult which is to paint books without words I don't know if you've read a book called Clown it's extraordinary I mean there are one or two books like and now I'm on his snowman by a man called Raymond Briggs and we know very well that he just do not need words but he's also very good at being collaborative with other people so I love working with him this book here was with Michael Forman who is the person I'm practically married to this man I mean he also has a wife and I have a wife but we are practically married I tell you what's lovely about how they're really good relationship they suggest stories to you as well so Michael will come to me and say look I've just thought of this and the other day I did a book on a train he came to me and said Michael have you ever done a book on a train I said no he said I thought you haven't I did my research no you haven't so I said why did you ask he said because I want you to I said what train you said I want you to do the Flying Scotsman and he knows me very well we're the same generation and this will surprise some of the young children here but in Hogwarts which some of you I use another name it looks like I'm called J.K. Rowling you didn't know she's looking really worried now anyway the thing about Hogwarts is people sometimes think the train was magic too no there were steam trains they did quite a lot of the polluting but my goodness did they smell lovely wasn't there a wonderful atmosphere King's Cross and St Pancras when you walked into that thing chopping away their smoke going straight up in the end straight down your lungs what on earth went on I don't know but I went off to school on trains like that and they were the most it was the most extraordinary way to travel less than children was important the windows on a steam train you had a leather strap and you pulled it out and it bonked down and you could fit 12 people in a carriage and they all be smoking really good fun living in it really was I went away to a boarding school it's another I learnt I mentioned to you about lying a moment ago and I will tell you a story about how I first learnt I was a good liar are you listening you pay attention I was on a train I was aged 9 coming back from East Grinsted to Victoria on a steam train chuff chuff chuff 14 weeks we've been away from our mums and dads homesick quite a lot of the time and we were longing to go home and we were coming towards Victoria Station and everyone was joking and he said what are you going to do in the halls what are you going to do in the halls you're in Spain I'm going to France I wasn't going anywhere I didn't say that though so I said don't know why I did this I looked at my watch which is called a Timex watch I was very pleased with my little Timex watch I looked at my Timex watch and I saw what I did I can't remember where I'm going a holiday but I really I want the train to be on time when the Queen's coming for tea and I looked up and I promised you there were 12 boys in that... I love telling it I love it when you tell a story and people believe it and all you children will know this you haven't analysed it but I promise you when you tell a film it's really important you have to at some point have a link to the truth give an example and you don't want to go to school I expect it's happened oh mum I've got a belly ache I can't go to school day I can't do this fine you'll feel better after breakfast I can't... so get dressed and come down and you go down there and you eat this huge breakfast because you've forgotten to continue the lie it should have been it's really awful I've got a lot of other things children are hopeless that way you just only tell half a lie and every teacher knows when you tell half a lie that you should never never lie to your teachers because they know sometimes your mums and dads know too even strange authors that you meet any other questions people? give a question from somebody online people still watching people still watching as far as I know I'm sure they are we have quite a lot of people signed up and we have all the people in the libraries as well watching but anyway there's a question from Hannah who wants to know why did you write The White Horse of Zeno really she wants to know that I'm surprised that anyone's read it because I used to go on my summer holidays every single summer for about seven years to a place called Zeno which is near St Ives in Cornwall and it has a moor above it it's very extraordinary right next door I used to rent a house which was lived in by a fairly decent writer called D.H. Lawrence who was known to I think he had lots of arguments with his wife in the kitchen where we used to eat Cornish pasties it's a strange mixture of impressions anyway Zeno was extraordinary it had a moor up above with these wonderful standing stones there and it was a place of great mystery and the mists would come down and there were lots and lots of stories and I was walking back from the war one day we had gone up there on a bright sunny day and I was coming back home and the fog came down which it does very quickly and I lost my way entirely and I was to wander in a fog not knowing where we were going it's not a pleasant experience at all and after a while I saw this shape coming towards me white shape and I nearly turned around and ran away and it was a white horse walking out of the fog I've no forgotten it it was full of the sort of sense of mystery up there and surprise and tragedy because a lot of cottages and old mine works up there where people had lived very hard and short lives and you were aware of it up there a lot of storytelling, a lot of music so I loved Zeno that's why I wrote all those stories where are you speaking to me from oh out there in the world somewhere out in the world somewhere do we have one more question I think maybe we've got time for one more so did you have any books that you loved re-reading as a child because I know I have some that I keep on reading again and again who's speaking here at the very back could you tell me the ones you like you like to read again and again I love reading I have your book, Kentucky's Kingdom that is what I was hoping you would say that was because I paid you the money beforehand could you now tell me the honest answer which of the Harry Potter books are you talking about no tell me tell me no actually Kentucky's Kingdom didn't pay that much money thank you I'm really pleased that you did it's a book I love dearly it is true I think you have to love the books that you write I'm not sure which are the good ones which are the bad ones I do know the ones which seem to work with lots of people and sometimes I don't like the reason a lot of people like War Horse because they've seen the film which isn't really so good for me as writing it because you read the book there was however a very great play of it which was so so good that I almost feel that it's more important to like that than the book it caught the spirit of the book perfectly anyone here see the play of War Horse I think it'll come back I hope so quite soon I think the question was also what book did you like to reread when you were young this will disappoint a lot of you I wasn't that good a reader I think it was because I was given books when I was very very young academic stepfather who thought I should be reading books way above my understanding really so I had books put into my hand books like Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens with extremely small print and I found it really difficult to understand them and physically to read them I'm not sure if I was dyslexing or not I don't know but I do know I found them really difficult to read and the problem was he would ask me questions about it about the plot so I had to know because you can find it sometimes in second hand book shops it's called classics illustrated and what it was was like comic books and a wonderful because it's Oliver Twist in pictures with a few little speech bubbles so when he questioned me I knew everything so I sort of got by that way and if I'm honest I had a wonderful mother who read to me stories in bread night and if I'd gone on that way I think I would have been a great reader when I was young because I loved being read to you I loved the stories I told you she was an actor she would read them beautifully she played the parts and painted the pictures with her the way she told it I loved it problem was I then went to school St Mathias and the Warwick Road West London great school now I know it loved the teachers but it wasn't in my day because they took stories away from you they just tested you on words they tested you on sentences I did something called pausing which sounds like a medical condition and it was all about testing not quite sure if people have grown out of it yet and what it does when you're becoming a reader is it puts you in a success and a failure thing those people who got minds that really went on could do their spelling and those people who could write neatly it's fine but if you see too many red marks on a page you don't want to do it again and if you fail too much when you're reading out aloud and you stutter a bit you don't want to do it again so there was a lot of negativity about it I mean they were doing their best these teachers at the time I'm sure they were doing what they do now but what it did was to put me off loving stories what I think should happen in every primary school in this country from three to half past every afternoon is simply the telling or the reading of stories because it's the only way you can get children into being readers that they've got to want to do it and I didn't want to do it so what did I do I thought well climbing trees is fun playing rugby is fun doing everything else is fun and I stopped reading until I was a teacher in my early twenties knowing and remembering them my mother had read to me beautifully and reserving that half hour every single day it was the best day of my teaching the best hours of my teaching lives were just doing these stories and then one day I got lucky I was reading a story which didn't work and went home and told my wife I told it was also a teacher and I said what am I going to do they didn't like it, the year six is usually horrible anyway I was reading my year six by the way any year six put your hands up, I knew it I could feel them in the room I had 35 little monsters like that I had to teach and from three to half past it was quite a difficult thing to keep them going anyway one day the story I was saying wasn't working my wife said to me don't go on with it the worst thing you can do in life is bore children don't do it tell one of your own and then she said something which is completely not true anyway I went in there the next day I made up a story overnight and I went in there and I told it and that is brave excuse me, 35 little monsters looking at you and you're doing something that's come from your head and your heart and for five minutes I looked at them and they were looking at the window watch me I'll show you what year six is look like when they don't like stuff, you're watching this is what they look like at three to half past they look like that entirely and they started like that and watch my face how it changed after five minutes so I started telling my story and then they went so I said I'm not finishing a story we're going to go on with it tomorrow afternoon oh sir, oh yes every teacher knows the moment every parent knows the moment when something has actually worked it's really great sir that's what I did I don't want this session to end I'm having such a lovely time can I ask you three very quick questions just to finish it off very quick like briefest of answers what's your favourite word tickety boom do you know this word tickety boom it just means really really good tickety boom everything is tickety boom say it say it and again louder it's a good word eh can you ever see yourself stopping writing please say no well I put this I think longevity has something to do with it you pop your clogs you're not around to write anymore it sort of stops but I do hope joking apart and I am joking what's really wonderful is if you can keep your memory and your way of making words as long as possible I think it can help you mentally to keep doing what it is that you like doing it makes you feel better about yourself and as long as I feel that the stories are still being enjoyed I shall go and do it do you remember I told you I was going to sing a song oh yes could we make sure all the doors are locked please I like to finish on a song I'm not a good singer I told you I'm not a good singer but I do like singing if some of you saw the play of warhors you will remember there were some wonderful folk songs in it and this is one of these folk songs written by a man called John Tams he's a great folksy and it's one of the songs from the warhors but I thought I'd finish on it because it's about nature it's about the seasons and the way the seasons change and go on and life goes on it's um I love it so I thought I'd tell what I will do it's quite important to remember this children when you sing a song in public it's really important you blow your nose before you do it that's a clean one if you want it's sharing a handkerchief with your interviewers it's clean I promise it's really kind of you thank you cruel winter cuts through like the reaper the old year lies withered and slain and like barley corn who rose from the grave a new year will rise up again and the snow falls the wind calls the year turns round again and like barley corn who rose from the grave a new year will rise up again and I'll wager a hatful of guineas against all of the songs you can sing that someday you'll love and the next day you'll lose and winter will turn into spring plowed sown, reaped and moan the year turns round again and like barley corn who rose from the grave a new year will rise up again I will garland a bonnet of daisies to crown you the queen of the may and all shall behold the seasons unfold as surely as night follows day Phoebe your eyes are gleaming her eyes the year turns round again and like barley corn who rose from the grave a new year will rise up again but there will come a time of great plenty a time of good harvest and sun till then put your trust in tomorrow my friend for yesterday's over and done and the snow falls the wind calls the year turns round again and like barley corn who rose from the grave a new year will rise up again I want to pick up a signed copy of a book for my Markle. It's over in the main building just on the left in the bookstore there with a little display and do enjoy the rest of your time at the library. Thanks again.