Time travel! What a mind-bending concept it is. Just imagine having your own time machine and being able to travel back into the past – or even forwards into the future! Impossible? Well, not in the world of science fiction, one of the main areas of interest in my writing. I may be better known for all my sports stories for children, but I’ve written many time-travelling tales too.
Time and Again began as an idea in one of my notebooks before I let the characters loose on the page – or at least on the computer screen – and then they helped me to write the story during the drafting process.
By pressing a red button on an old watch, the children experience a time slip of one hour. Not long, maybe, but many things can happen in that extra time, especially when they are able to change what originally took place – for better or worse.
I have always enjoyed writing and had my sights set on a career in journalism after graduating from Leicester University in the early 1970s. Instead, I somehow found myself teaching in primary schools for about 20 years. The best part of the job, as far as I was concerned, was being able to run various sports clubs and coach the youngsters in a wide range of activities like football, gymnastics, cricket and athletics. It turned out to be very good experience for writing for children and I left teaching to concentrate on doing just that. I must have had about 80 books published since the first one appeared in 1980.
My wife, Joy, and I love rough collie dogs, like Lassie in the stories, and we now share our home in a Leicestershire village with one called Rocky. He always gives us a good excuse to leave our desks and enjoy walks in the local countryside and along nearby canal towpaths.