A FORMER dale schoolboy, who went on to spend 37 years as a primary school teacher, has produced his first published children’s book in his retirement.
Alastair Simpson, who studied at Barnard Castle Grammar School (now Teesdale School), completed his novelette Feather Fred after eight years of toil.
Although he had dabbled in writing while working, nothing was successfully published for the avid golfer and rambler and he abandoned writing until just shy of a decade ago.
He said: “My wife is a bell-ringer, she’s in the WI and does yoga and all these things, so on a night I was left by myself.
“I didn’t go golfing and I didn’t go walking with the Ramblers on a night. It was the summer of 2015 when I just got this idea to start writing.
“I just like the idea of a blank piece of paper and a pen. That is a challenge for me.”
He added: “Roald Dahl was one of my favourite authors for kids and he said in an interview that children like something outrageous and something rude. So that has stuck in my head and it came out in the book.”
His story, about a boy who finds himself turning into a chicken after a farm visit, is exactly that – outrageous.
He said: “A few days [after the farm visit] he wakes up and he has got a rash. He shows his mam and she says it’s chicken-pox. So, the brother starts bullying him saying, ‘you’re turning into a chicken, I wouldn’t be surprised if I find an egg in your bed tomorrow’.
“All of a sudden, strange things start happening to his body, and he has to hide these changes. That is what the book is about – how does he stop himself turning into a chicken? It’s a bit whacky.”
It is precisely how Fred is able to conceal the changes and to stop them that resulted in the book taking eight years to develop.
Mr Simpson said: “I would get to a point where Fred had got himself into a real situation and I’d think how am I going to get him out of that? I’d think, but then no [it won’t work], then suddenly ping [that’ll work] – so it was stop-start, stop-start.”
The book was completed last year, but it took more than a year after signing a contract that the book eventually went to market in September.
Mr Simpson, who remains a member of Barnard Castle Golf Club, now lives in Bishop Auckland.
Feather Fred is available from Waterstones, Amazon and Kindle.
