How did you become a children’s author
I thought I’d give teaching a few years and I really started writing while I was there. One day I was teaching a class and we were reading a really boring book and I mucked about and said ‘This book is awful, I hate this book’. One of my pupils said ‘You shouldn’t say things are awful unless you can do them better yourself’ so I took up the challenge and wrote a story over the Easter holidays. If filled eight English exercise books! I read it to my class and they said it was really good which gave me the confidence to start writing seriously.

How did you come up with the idea for Beaver Towers?
Basically I got the idea one day when I went round to see a friend of mine who had two awful twin boys – everybody called them the terrible twins! My friend and I were in the kitchen and these two boys were skateboarding down the stairs. My friend was furious and said ‘I hope the next craze they have is something they’ve got to do out of doors like flying a kite’. I thought about the idea of flying a kite. I remember getting one as a kid and losing it on the first day I went out flying with it. At the time I remember wondering where it could have gone. The idea of a kite and a boy flying away just all seemed to fall into place and the story started to develop. I thought about where he could go on this kite and I loved it in books when people went to strange and mysterious islands. So it all started with someone mentioning a kite and me thinking ‘Yeah, that might make a good story’.

Towards the end of the series, Philip, Baby B and Nick learn to think-talk – do you believe it’s possible to communicate through the power of mind?
I do suspect that in many thousands of years human beings will develop the capacity to do things that we’re not aware of at the moment. I think we understand almost nothing of how things work and we only know what we can see and feel and touch. We know for example that dogs can hear more than we can and that if you look under a microscope you see more than you can with just your eyes. The way we see the world is only through limited senses and if we could see the world with other senses we would understand it in a completely different way. One of the senses that would be worth having would be immediate communication between people over long distances. What I suggest in The Dangerous Journey and The Dark Dream is that this ability is a very powerful one and it shouldn’t be misused.

How do you set about writing a book?
It’s difficult because every book is a different experience. Once I have a starting point I often write down that first idea and then ask questions about it. By doing this you can make other ideas come along and in doing so construct a story. Stories never come complete, so bit by bit you have to work out the rest. It’s like setting off across the ocean – you know there are various islands that you’re going to hop to and from but you don’t know much about the little sailing bits in between. The fascinating thing is that when I start to write, it’s as though something else takes over and the idea I’ve got already is like a magnet and the rest of the details just come flying onto it. I’m often amazed by what I’m writing down!

Do you try to convey any particular messages to young people in your books?
I’ve always thought books have a responsibility for telling people what is best about us as human beings. I love the fact that in the Beaver Towers series a group of animals lead by Philip are facing dangers, like Oyin the Witch and being kind and loyal to each other too. At the end of the second Beaver Towers book – The Witches Revenge – the temptation the Oyin give Philip is to leave Beaver Towers and save himself, to think only about himself and forget Baby B who has got himself into trouble. It’s the goodness in Philip that say’s ‘No, he’s my friend and I can’t let him go’. I do believe that the best books always carry something extra, not just a story but ways of helping you develop and grow.

What advice would you give to budding young authors?
There are three things that I think are really essential to writing. One is if you’re serious you have to read a lot because that’s how you learn how to write – by seeing what other people do. Ask yourself questions like Why did I like that chapter? and What was good about that book? and then try and have a go yourself. Next, I think you have to picture your ideas in your mind. Try to imagine what your characters look like and how they behave. The third thing you have to do when you’re writing is think about the emotions your characters are thinking and try and make yourself feel then too. I try to give emotions to words that I’m writing on the page.

Can you describe the room in which you write?
It’s a very small room about twelve feet long and only about four feet wide right at the top of my house. There’s one window so my desk isn’t there, otherwise I’d be looking out of it all the time! I’ve got lots of books on shelves behind me, a mini hi-fi system with lots of CDs, my guitars and pictures of people that matter very much to me.

What do you think makes a children’s book successful?
I think you have to have a strong, gripping story – a real page-turner. I really believe in that but at the same time I think your heart has got to be in the book. You have to believe in what you’re writing and give the very best of yourself and really care about what you are doing. I’m constantly aware of the reader and thinking how can I make reading my book an enjoyable experience.

What books did you enjoy as a child?
My earliest memory of books was being read Winnie the Pooh and it used to make me laugh like a drain. The funny thing is I now live on the Ashdown Forest about half a mile away from where A.A.Milne wrote the books and sometimes I take people to see Pooh Bridge. The thing about books like Winnie the Pooh is that you never tire of them. Now I look at those animals and I realize they represent so much truth about what humans are like. There’s a bit of me that’s like Piglet and a bit of me that’s like grumpy old Eeyore!

What do you do in you spare time?
I’m crazy about music – I love Bob Dylan and play the guitar very badly! I read a lot, go to the cinema and like walking, swimming and bird watching.

Do you surf the Internet?
I’m really into the Internet and I love using e-mail. I can write an e-mail to my friend in San Francisco just like that. It’ like secretly passing notes to your mates at the back of the class!

What are your ambitions?
I’d like to write the greatest books ever written!