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This is just a fun quiz to see if you can guess what I have done, or not done, in my life.

Answer all the questions by ticking one box only.

 

1. John Has written over 1,000 poems.

True   False 

2. John often draws the illustrations for his books

True   False  .

3. John once broke a toilet window with a football, while there was someone sitting inside.

True   False 

4. John once worked as a fire-fighter fighting a forest fire in Canada.

True   False 

5. John once had a trial with Carlisle United.

True   False 

6. John never gets stuck for a rhyme when he's writing a poem.

True   False 

7. John's 10 year old grandson thinks some of John's poems are weird.

True   False 

8. John likes swimming but did not learn to swim until he was 12.

True   False 

9. John has two nephews called Dr Foster and one of them is married to Dr Foster.

True   False 

10. In the 1960's John was in a group called The Blurts who had a novelty record called Blah! Blah! Bertie in the Top Twenty.

True   False 

If you have answered all the questions, click on Next to see how good a guesser you are. You can only try this once. (Multiple attempts will lead to a 10/10)

 

Answers

1. True!  Actually it's more than 1,000. I've lost count. Over 250 of them are included in my book The Poetry Chest and you'll find poems of mine in lots of poetry anthologies by people such as Brian Moses, Paul Cookson and Roger Stevens.
2. False!  I've never been allowed to do the illustrations for my books, because I can't draw. Soo the publishers get brilliant artists like Korky Paul and Tony Ross to illustrate them.
3. False!  I did break a toilet window but there wasn't anyone sitting inside.
4. True!  When I was a student, I spent three months in Canada during the summer. A friend and I spent a month working as firefighters in the forest near a town called Hope in British Columbia.
5. False!  My childhood heroes were the Carlisle United team that drew with Arsenal in the FA Cup. But I was never good enough to get a trial with the club.
6. False!  I quite often get stuck for a rhyme. So I've got a rhyming dictionary which I use to help me. Sometimes I have to reorder the words in a line to get a different word at the end of a line or even rewrite the line completely.
7. True!  Louis, my grandson, thinks that some of my poems are weird, like My Auntie Dot's a Coffee Pot and I Made a Robot Out of Doughnuts.
8. True!  As a young child I was afraid of water. It was only when I was twelve that one of my teachers was able to coax me to learn. But I really like swimming now, especially in the sea.
9. True!  Both my nephews, Crawford and Duncan, are doctors and Crawford is married to another doctor, Nicky.
10. False!  If I start singing, everyone leaves the room. And you didn't really think there was a band called The Blurts did you?