Once upon a time

A real "blast from the past" yesterday, walking around the Blaise Castle estate in Bristol with our dog. When we lived in the area it was a popular place for walks - and for stories. Like many mums of small children, I would make up stories to keep my two amused on walks (especially when we got to the "Pick me up!" stage); Blaise was where the "More Please Fairy" came into existence and her exploits kept them walking for many a mile. When they got a bit older it was stories weaved around the folly on the hill - tales of knights and dragons, dungeons and dreamers.

Blaise folly - "As it grew
dark one winter evening ..."

But the real favourite was the story of Thermopylae. In the museum at Blaise was a toy section and in it sat an elderly, somewhat threadbare teddy bear. For some reason I decided that, many years before, this bear had come all the way from Thermopylae in Greece to live with a little girl in Bristol. Even when she grew up this girl kept all her childhood toys; having no children of her own however, when she died an old, old woman, Thermopylae and his companions went to live in the museum. But the curators did not realise that he could work magic; they did not know that he could open his glass cupboard at night and sneak out into the woods to play and picnic there .... and so the story went on!

In the museum one morning, as I was regaling the children with Thermopylae's latest adventure, a lady tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I wrote my stories down. I hadn't realised that I had been overheard by a professional children's author! "You really should, you know, there would be a real market for them". I was hugely flattered but never followed up on her advice. Yesterday, a quarter of a century later, I began to wonder if I actually should ...