Questions and Answers

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Q. What sign of the Zodiac were you born under?
A. Libra.

Q. What kind of person were you at school?
A. Sporty. While still at school, I played cricket for Carlisle and was once junior tennis champion of Cumberland!

Q. Where did you have your first poem published?
A. In a school magazine.

Q. What's the best thing about being a children's poet?
A. Performing my poems to enthusiastic audiences.

Q. What's the worst thing about being a children's poet?
A. Struggling to find the right word to say exactly what you mean.

Q. Which book of yours is your favourite?
A. Twinkle Twinkle Chocolate Bar

Q. What was your favourite book as a child?
A. The Dragon Book of Verse

Q. Which book would you most like to have written?
A. Clockwork by Philip Pullman.

Q. What would be your ideal day out – your dream come true?
A. Watching the Carlisle United team on an open-topped doubledecker bus celebrating their winning of the Premiership and the FA Cup.

Q. What did you want to be as a child and what would you most like to have done?
A. A professional cricketer, who scored a century in a Test match.

Q. What amuses you most?
A. Nonsense poems and poems that are based on puns and wordplay.

Q. What are your favourite poems?
A. My favourite poems that I've written are Ten Dancing Dinosaurs, The Schoolkids' Rap and the tonguetwister Sean Short's Short Shorts.

Q. What are your favourite poems by other poets?
A. My favourite children's poem is Roger the Dog by Ted Hughes. My all-time favourite poem is the classic poem Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Q. What's your advice to aspiring young poets?
A. Go for it!