I have been very lucky to work with some top writers who also turned out to be very decent and supportive people. They championed me and my work without ever seeing what I had done with their stories. So this week I decided to share video of The Hundred Mile and Hour Dog with Jeremy Strong and Dennis and the Chamber of Mischief with Nigel Auchterlounie. This was a bit daunting because whilst I am confident in my own work the last thing you want is for somebody to say they hate what you do and you should stop.
I needn’t have worried. They both loved what they saw:
“Don’t miss John Kirk’s genius storytelling. He’s brilliant! John Kirk brings stories to life in an amazing way and encourages children’s reading, writing and listening skills”.
Jeremy Strong
“That was excellent John. Thanks so much for showing me and thanks so much for doing it in the first place! You had me laughing within the first couple of minutes. Well done! I loved it!”
Nigel Auchterlounie
It was a great thrill to have the opportunity to tell these stories but I’m even more thrilled that having shared footage of my retellings both authors took the time to watch the films and comment on it. I’m also glad because whenever I have told the stories I have seen myself as an advocate of the author; a sort of unofficial cheerleader for the books trying to encourage young readers to engage with their titles.
As a storyteller you come to appreciate that some words go further and mean more than others and after a lot of work and a lot of miles travelled these words mean an awful lot to me.
—
I love Scotland. I don’t really know why. Perhaps it’s because we went there a lot on our family holidays or because of the happy times spent at Edinburgh Festivals in the early noughties. Maybe it’s the accent or simply because I don’t have to spell out my surname to Scottish people but I have always had a soft spot for the place. Anyway, the last time I worked in Scotland was on a schools tour almost fifteen years ago. I have been trying to find a way of working there again ever since. Earlier in 2018 I thought I’d cracked it; I booked dates for the summer in Moray, Angus, Fife and Dumfries and Galloway but the plan was scuppered because of my family commitments. Then came The Beast from the East hit Britain. It caused chaos and lead to the postponement of the Wee Write! Festival. Determined to do something for young Glaswegians the organisers managed to pull together a wonderful programme of activity in just a few weeks. I hadn’t been originally invited to participate but when I was contacted I didn’t think twice – I was Ton my way to Scotland!
The thing about living in London and working in Glasgow is it’s a very long way and travelling on a Sunday is not easy. So my day begins at 3.45am (you haven’t misread that) as my alarm goes and I hop in the shower having spent the night sleeping on Verity’s play mat in the living room. I creep out of the house, terrified of waking her particularly as we’ve been camping this week and her sleep is all over the place from spending the night in our van. By 4.10am I’m at the tube station. I have used the night tube once before but never in the very depths of the night. As a train geek this is brilliant fun and I’m excited to see that a service runs every 10 minutes through the night. When the tube arrives it’s pretty empty but it soon fills up with people heading home from their nights out or, like me, to the airport. When I reach Victoria I stroll along Buckingham Palace Road arriving just before 5am. I try to talk my way onto an earlier bus but I’ve got no chance – all the buses from Victoria Coach Station have been fully booked from 3am because there’s no other way of reaching Luton at this time in the morning. No worries, I wander back to Greggs for a sausage roll (yes, Greggs is open before 5am in Victoria Coach Station!).
At this stage I am not worried at all. I have selected a bus which will get me to Luton in good time for my flight. I had foolishly bought a rail ticket only to discover that I’d miss check in by a minute if I used it so as the bus gets underway I’m feeling pretty smug. I read my book in the dawn light as we loll through the empty London streets. Looking out the window the dew in Hyde Park gives the grass a very eerie appearance. Everything is going fine until the bus suddenly stops. The driver informs us that a joy rider has crashed a car and abandoned it in the middle of the road. There is nothing on the road and the bus is still stuck. The minutes are now ebbing away as the Police arrive and inspect the vehicle. I know that they are working as fast as they can but as they check the vehicle over I am wishing they’d just find the hand brake and clear the road. The bus finally gets through and we arrive at Luton Airport ten minutes late. I have just enough time to check my bag before jogging through security and onto the the plane. An hour later I am reunited with my bag and am queuing for a transfer into the city of Glasgow.
I have only been to Glasgow a couple of times but the central area has never struck me as being that big (it is however very hilly particularly if you misread the google map and go up the same hill twice!). I finally find the Mitchell Library. The Mitchell Library is one of the largest libraries I have ever been in and it has a beautiful early 20th century exterior. Today its grandness is somewhat overshadowed by the fairly busy dual carriageway it sits next to but as I go inside and see the gathering crowds it is clear that the Mitchell Library is a much loved community asset. Having said my hellos I make myself scarce for a while. 
I take a turn along Bath Street and Sauciehall Street toward Buchanan Street stopping off to see the Duke of Wellington’s traffic cone hat before heading out onto the river Clyde and meandering via BBC Scotland back to the library. It still pretty early and the city has a very relaxed feel about it; the city is awash with colour with everybody wearing either Celtic green or Race for Life Pink. 
When I get back to the library the place is buzzing and there’s a very friendly atmosphere; there’s cartoonists leading master classes, toddler story times, a science workshop and people hanging out in the cafe space. The children seem to be having a high old time. In the foyer as I listen to the Seussical Musical it’s easy to forget that I am here to work.
Finally my moment arrives and I’m ushered into in the 400 seat Mitchell Theatre. This venue has seen some seriously big names play on it. I am doing a demanding double bill of “The Twits” and “The Hundred Mile an Hour Dog”. The presentations go down well. The audience seem to enjoy “The Twits” but it’s trickier to tell with Streaker. It’s quite quiet in the auditorium for both stories as the crowd give very little away. I worry that my brand of chaos seems to be getting lost in the vast auditorium and that I’m not getting up my usual momentum but there are still queues at the end of each session for photographs and lots of positive feedback.
Then as quickly as it all began my participation in the festival is over. By 4.30pm I’m back on the street and after another couple of hours in Glasgow city centre its back to the bus stop and off to the airport only to find my flight has been delayed (it’s now nearly midnight and I’m still not quite home). 
There are signs all over the city reminding its inhabitants that “People make Glasgow” well I will certainly remember the people who made my Wee Write! Festival so memorable and I am very grateful to the organisers for their hospitality and the audiences for supporting my work. Its been a crazy day but it was a pleasure to have been part of a very special event in a very special city.
I live in London. I went to drama college there have a family there and love its bright lights and history. I wasn’t raised in London though. I am from Lancashire and it’s there that my cultural vocabulary was shaped. It was in the north west that I was inspired to set out on a creative journey which means that when I head north these days I have a small rucksack for my clothes and two suitcases of props, wigs and hats (this week I have been working in libraries and schools in Chorley, Blackburn and Huddersfield).
So the six week holidays are coming to an end and another Summer Reading Challenge is drawing to its conclusion. Once again thousands of young people have participated as readers and volunteers in libraries across Britain and once again I have played my small part in launching, enhancing and celebrating the challenge through storytelling.
Sometimes I think maybe its too fast but then this isn’t the book, its a story. In Jeremy’s book he throws in loads of lovely jokes, witty observations and one liners which in a 40 minute presentation I simply do not have time to deliver. This story is a bit like a situation comedy; that much of the humour comes from things getting worse and worse for the characters involved. Its in all this mania that I find my task for even when the story seems to be out of control I have to be master of its rhythms for there to be any kind of momentum. As crazy as what I’m doing might seem, most of the time I’ve got these rhythms on a tight leash and as a result when I do slow down, pauses have real impact and key bits of narrative can be easily stressed.
