A lot of children, like I did, move away from words because of the fear - which is something you have to take out of education: the fear of worrying about what marks you'll get, detention, worrying about letting people down, your parents, teachers.

By the time I sit down and face the blank page I am raring to go. I tell it as if I'm talking to my best friend or one of my grandchildren.

Perhaps it is partly that we need to love books ourselves as parents, grandparents and teachers in order to pass on that passion for stories to our children. It's not about testing and reading schemes, but about loving stories and passing on that passion to our children.

There's a nobility in his eye, a regal serenity about him. Does he not personify all that men try to be and never can be?

Read a lot - poems, prose, stories, newspapers, anything. Read books and poems that you think you will like and some that you think might not be for you. You might be surprised.

He never reckoned much to schooling and that. He said you could learn most what was worth knowing from keeping your eyes and ears peeled. Best way of learning, he always said, was doing.

We're much alike, bee, you and me," I said. "You may carry your pack underneath you and your rifle may stick out of your bottom. But you and me, bee, are much alike.