Seven Stories Archive

I bundled up a pile of papers for the Seven Stories Museum of Children's Literature that is opening soon in Newcastle. I had to go through hundreds of old files and boxes to find sheets of paper that showed my writing and revising poems and stories. It was like doing archaeology on myself. I could seem myself as Tony Robinson on Time Team running about all over myself saying things like: '...and so far we've found the very first scribbles that went towards making the poem Don't from Don't Put Mustard In The Custard. We've only got another few hours. Will we find anything that tells us why this strange person from the mid twentieth century did these things?'

Anyway, in the end, I found quite a lot, shoved it in a box and a courier came to pick it up on May 18. I found the first manuscripts that I wrote for my two novels: You're Thinking About Doughnuts and You're Thinking About Tomatoes; the first drafts for some of the Eddie poems and the first draft for The Sad Book. It will all go into the archive at Seven Stories where anyone who wants to look at them can go and see them. And they can use them for their exhibitions or eventually, make files of them and put them up on their website.