I always wanted to record things but never truly found my muse until I became a father. As long as I can remember, the passing of time and the creation of memories were never far from my thoughts. The world of Subbuteo was preserved in a nil circulation newspaper on a children’s typewriter when I was 8 or 9. I wrote a diary through school, which ran along the usual lines – when Andrew Collins and Richard Herring read from their own childhood journals on their Saturday morning BBC 6 Music show, they astutely observed that “teenage boys are obsessed with sex and death because they have no experience of either”. I sat history at university, partly because I loved writing essays and partly because living vicariously through the protagonists of the English Civil War seemed to stretch time beyond our own all too short tenures. I qualified as a chartered financial planner and found myself well suited to writing client reports. But I never unearthed the creative outlet until I became a dad at 39, when I thought my chance had gone. I have written a journal every day since Vincent was born, anxious that not a single memory should slip away. Times changed, and I found myself a separated dad. In May 2014 I was invited to speak about this role on the Men’s Hour programme on BBC Radio 5 Live, and also to write and record a short story (The Long Journey Home) with a father and son theme. I am subsequently working on a number of other stories that I feel are best suited (although not exclusively) for boys between 3 and 7. One is about a boy who turns into a monster when he drinks from the wrong tap, and the other is about a boy who travels to the moon with his two kittens, which is rooted in the facts of the Apollo lunar missions. I will publish them on here in the near future, and would be delighted to hear from illustrators who may be interested in collaborating with a view to publishing.