I tell you, my friends,’ he said one day. ‘I tell you that I am the only sane man in the regiment. It’s the others that are mad, but they don’t know it. They fight a war and they don’t know what for. Isn’t that crazy? How can one man kill another and not really know the reason why he does it, except that the other man wears a different colour uniform and speaks a different language? And it’s me they call mad!

Anything that gets children reading is fine.

Animals are sentient, intelligent, perceptive, funny and entertaining. We owe them a duty of care as we do to children.

Genuinely good people are like that. The sun shines out of them. They warm you right through.

There's room for all sorts of magic and miracles in this world - that's what I think.

Blind terror drove me on, with my flying stirrups whipping me into a frenzy. With no rider to carry I reached the kneeling riflemen first and they scattered as I came upon them.

It's the teacher that makes the difference, not the classroom.