Tuesday June 16th 2026

Returning to Lakeside Primary should have been easy.

It’s my children’s old primary school, meaning all I had to do was drag my author trolley around the corner on foot.

Yet as I made that short walk today, all that was running through my mind was the sore throat, tickly cough, and uncontrollable runny nose I was battling.

And with two back-to-back assemblies waiting for me before I even reached my first workshop, I felt as though I had a mountain to climb.

Thankfully, that mountain started shrinking as soon as I arrived.

While I was setting up in the hall, somebody appeared with a fan.

Then another fan.

Then came the questions:

Are they in the right place?

Are they too noisy?

Will they help?

Those questions may seem small, but the care and attention behind them helped more than the staff member asking them could possibly know.

Thankfully, the assemblies went swimmingly, my voice held out, and then it was on to one of my favourite parts of the whole day: the Gifted and Passionate Writers session.

I’ve run similar sessions at Lakeside before, but this one felt extra special.

Mrs Whitmore was kindly able to stay for the whole session and take care of the practical side of things, meaning I could hand the session over to the pupils, see what they wanted to get out of it and focus entirely on them.

That freedom made a huge difference.

The pupils asked thoughtful questions about coming up with book titles, naming characters, editing, publishing, and what life is really like as an author before helping to critique one another’s work.

Emily, in particular, stood out.

When another pupil bravely shared her work and invited feedback, Emily absorbed every piece of advice being given. By the time Emily and I sat down together to discuss her own writing, she had already taken on board so much of what we had been talking about. She was like a sponge, soaking up ideas that weren’t even directed at her.

In fact, she impressed me to such an extent during that session that she eventually became my dragon prize winner.

The three Year 4 workshops that followed were also a joy.

One wonderfully funny line of dialogue still makes me smile:

“Mummy… oops, I mean Mum.”

And one moment that particularly stayed with me was when Nina found the courage to stand up and read aloud, despite being genuinely scared to do so. With encouragement from a friend beside her, she overcame something she hadn’t thought she could do, and it was wonderful to see.

On reflection, perhaps I was wrong about having a mountain to climb.

Or perhaps the mountain was real, but I simply had a lot of wonderful people helping me up it.

From the fans that appeared as if by magic first thing… and no, I don’t mean Penny popping into the hall to tell me she loved my books, although that was wonderful to hear… to the all-hands-on-deck approach during book sales at the end of the day, there always seemed to be somebody quietly helping things along.

Huge thanks to all the pupils, staff, and the wonderful Mrs Whitmore for another special visit at a school that will always be dear to me. ❤️