I must have been eight or nine when I was given an exercise book and a pen for Christmas with pictures of all my favourite Mr Men on the cover. So I sat down in front of the Christmas tree and immediately started writing a story inspired by Mr Happy. But it felt wrong—in fact, I still have this book and there is now a huge cross through my short Mr Happy story, giving you some clue as to what happened next. You see, a few lines into the story—based on the Roger Hargreaves’ books I loved—I went for a walk with my family. I remember that cold, bright morning climbing some old stone, moss-covered steps, trodden by monks hundreds of years ago on their pilgrimage between Kewstoke Priory and Wells Cathedral, dreaming up a tale of my own. As I neared the top of the steps, a little out of breath, my head was buzzing with a story about my brown held-together-by-string teddy. He had superpowers and his name would fittingly be Super Teddy (although a misspelling meant Supper, not Super Teddy would save the world in my first story). I returned from my walk, put pen to paper and let badly spelt words flow out of me. It became the first of three stories I would pen with my sister. They starred all of our cuddly toys, from a moth-eaten panda playing an evil tyrant called Captain Vin, to a couple of hand-made penguins who acted as comic relief in each of the very serious adventures through time and space. So this is the reason I write: because I’m constantly reliving that beautiful moment of creation and discovering the new, or rather, inching my way forward in an endeavour to fail better after each flawed story. The frustration of editing and the pain of rejection after rejection may be hard but the challenge to keep learning, buoyed up by the wings of creation, make this a life-long endeavour I will never tire of.
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Paul Attmere, Writer 