JACQUELINE WILSON AND ME

Good evening everyone - and Happy Hallowe'en. Have you had any trick-or-treaters this evening? I have had oodles of miniscule witches, ghouls, wizards and vampires at my door this year. Luckily, when Hubby and I were in Croydon the other day we bought two selection packs of penny favourites - you know - lollies, Love Hearts, Swizzles and violet munchies - so I have given lots of treats out. I love seeing the children enjoying themselves and wish we'd gone trick-or-treating when we were kids. The closest I ever came was when I was about 12 when a friend and I dressed up as witches and wandered the streets cackling and jumping out on people from behind hedges. We didn't go knocking on doors of course! It wasn't encouraged in those days with many an adult seeing it as little more than another form of begging; but we enjoyed ourselves none-the-less and made an occasion of it.



A few months ago, I bought myself a copy of Jacqueline Wilson's book 'Jacky Daydream' - an autobiography of her childhood years. I put it on the bookshelf along with a dozen or so other new books waiting to be read and there it stayed - until last Friday. I don't know if you are familiar with Jacqueline Wilson? Most of you would have heard of her I imagine but the closest I'd got before was when I read 'Tracey Beaker' a couple of years ago after picking it up at a Car Boot Sale. And a few months later 'The Illustrated Mum'. I was of course familiar with the candy pinks of most of the book covers and, with no disrespect, considered the books themselves as a kind of chick-lit in embrio. All that has changed now because of 'Jacky Daydream'. You really shouldn't judge a book by its cover - or the author either, I have to admit, because this book was utterly brilliant. In fact I have never ever read an autobiography quite like it. And I was just so engrossed in Jacqueline's world that I went out and spent the last of my 50th birthday Smiths vouchers on three of her books. I finished 'Jacky Daydream' on Monday and read 'The Lottie Project' in the course of the next 24 hours. I started on 'Midnight' this morning and am completely spellbound. Ok - so I started late (well - very late if I'm honest) but I think I have become a Jacqueline Wilson convert!

It isn't just because her characters are so completely believable (I have seem parts of myself as a child in Charlie, Lottie and Violet already), and it isn't just because she writes so naturally. It is because I recognise the Writer's personae that shines through every single word. I would not be fool-hardy enough to say there are simalarities between Jacky's childhood and mine because they were completely different - even if just as stormy. But I knew Kingston as a little girl which is where she lived. I played exactly the kind of imaginary games she did. We even read many of the same books. And - just like Jacky - I knew I was going to be a writer -almost from the time I could understand stories. I could read by the time I was three, took to it like a duck to water, my mum always said, and was consequently planted in the book corner at school and left to my own devices whilst my classmates got to grips with their alphabet. I won a prize at the age of nine in a writing competition at school and announced to a class full of twelve year olds during a careers talk at High School that I was going to be a writer. "What kind of writer?" the teacher asked. "A book writer," was my reply.

I don't know if I will read all Jacky's books; I will probably give her 'Girls' series a miss because I really do think I am too old for them. And I doubt if I will read anymore Tracey Beaker or the Double Act series. But I think I'll get through quite a few over the coming months. And I am sure I will read 'Jacky Daydream' again at some point.

And one day, maybe, I'll get to shake the hand of this lady of a billion words; purely because I like her - and because I see us a fellow travellers on the literary road of life!

Here's to Jacky!