I was eight when I wrote my first novel.  It was called The Windy Night; it was a thriller and had nothing to do with cabbage.

I only wrote four-pages; and most of that were drawings (the sign of a good book is one which contains pictures).

One evening my dad brought home a few sheets of slightly used Letraset letter transfers.  My book suddenly had a very professional front cover, courtesy of these discarded sheets.

The book was never published.  My theory was the lack of semi-colons in the prose (or perhaps, too many?).  Sadly, there were no vowels left on the sheet, so the title became Th Wndy Nght – possibly many publishers rejected it as they thought it was written in Welsh or Shakespearean English?

There was a shop in Balham High Street which sold stationery.  They not only sold these transfer sheets with letters (including ones with all vowels still intact), but you could also buy a piece of card depicting landscapes where you could create your own scene.   I had sheets which had a beach showing the D-Day landings (with soldiers and tanks to manoeuvre) and a field, where you could place flora and fauna.

I mixed the two and had a giant caterpillar landing on Omaha beach and several Wehrmacht officers blowing dandelions.