January 2013. It had been a year since I had been made redundant from a job - a career - I had really enjoyed, and I was struggling, emotionally and in terms of self confidence and self belief.

 

Since being made redundant, I'd kept in contact with some former colleagues and one, in particular, had been very supportive through lots of email correspondence. Fiona knew all about my writing aspirations, and on 29th January 2013, she expanded on some previous discussions we'd had, all of which had been fairly light and speculative, by sending me an email which contained some photos of some cuddly toys, together with very brief biographies of them, and challenged me to write a story about them, which she would then look to illustrate.

 

I'd never written a children's story before. I'd had a few ideas, one about a "Fireman Sam/Bob The Builder" type, who would be a police officer, as well as having some ideas for some YA books. It was not a genre I had ever really considered; it didn't particularly 'float my boat' and I had little interest in it.

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But the gauntlet had been thrown down, and because I knew my friend was trying to be supportive during a very difficult time for me, I felt obliged to accept the challenge. I looked at the photos, read the biographies and, for good measure, threw in a toy of my own, (Poodie), and came up with the toy cupboard idea. Fiona liked it, so off I went, and wrote it.

 

Real life got in the way for both of us, and in particular did not give her the time she wanted and needed to provide the cover, so it went onto the back burner.

 

Jump forward to June 2017. I was messing around with what I had intended to be my fourth full-length book (Uncle Prawn), which was long, long, overdue (again, due to real life getting in the way).

 

While I was giong through my notes, I came across Toy Cupboard again. I looked at it, tweaked the text a bit, and then created a basic cover idea of my own which, out of courtesy, I sent to Fiona, who told me that she still very much wanted to provide a cover.

 

A couple of weeks later, I had the cover, and felt that it was well worth waiting for; it's even better than I had pictured it in my mind, together with some wonderful illustrated chapter headings.

 

And so, my first children's story was published. I was somewhat surprised when a number of positive reviews appeared. I was also asked when the next one would be coming out.

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In 2018, I wrote the text for a second book and in January 2019 Fiona and I met (our first face-to-face meeting since 2012!) and the wheels were put in motion for book two, with ideas for a few more, too.