RTW: Danke mein Freund

In order to fit today’s Road Trip Wednesday with the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge, I’ve had to resort to one of the few German phrases I know. Call me a cheater, but the rules don’t say the words have to be English! Anyway, today’s Road Trip Wednesday question posed by the lovely ladies at YA Highway is: Who has helped you on your reading/writing/publishing journey? This is an opportunity to tell them “Thanks!” Or, as they say in Germany, “Danke!”

There are many people I could choose to say thanks to, including my wife, my blog friends, my beta readers, and even literary agent Janet Reid (getting singled out in her writing contests is a huge encouragement). But I want to take a slightly different direction for this challenge, and pay tribute to someone who encouraged my literary creativity  at a very early and important stage in my life.

Mr. Jim Cobbett was one of the best teachers I ever had at school. He was my teacher in my 5th and 7th years at Marlbrook County Primary School (ages 8-9 and 10-11), and more than any teacher I had at any of the schools I’ve been to, he took notice of, and took seriously, my writing. As a teacher generally, he was amazing. He did things like teach punctuation by writing a paragraph on the blackboard (it was the late 70s) and have us use percussion instruments to indicate the punctuation while someone read the text. On another occasion, he had us make characters out of the letters of the alphabet and then draw comic strip stories based on our alphabet character. Another time, he had us listen to the Monty Python “Spam” sketch and perform it for the rest of the school during Assembly one morning. And then there was the time when, as part of the lead-up to our class trip to the Isle of Wight, he played us “Ticket to Ride” by the Beatles and challenged us to re-write the lyric to celebrate the town of Ryde on the Isle of Wight. You get the idea? He knew how to teach kids and make it fun. He was our teacher and advocate. We really felt like he cared about us.

But specifically, as it pertains to my writing, one time he had us write plays, and I came up with this detective story called The Disprin Murders. I don’t remember the details, but it involved a man called Mr. Headache who reports murders to the police. In the end, it turns out Mr. Headache is the murderer (“Disprin” is (or was) a popular brand of headache medicine in the UK). Mr. Cobbett was impressed enough that he had the class actually “perform” the play. He assigned parts, we got into costume, and he took pictures of us posing for various scenes. We then recorded the script on a tape recorder, and he made a slide show of the play combining the audio with the pictures. I could tell a lot more stories like this, but suffice to say, for as long as he was my teacher, he treated me as his go-to person for creative story ideas like that, which of course for a young child is incredibly affirming.

So, thank you, Mr. Cobbett. If and when my first novel is published, you can be sure your name will be in the acknowledgements. I’m sure he’ll be surprised it’s taken me this long to finally get something in print!

Now it’s your turn. If you’re a writer, is there someone you want to thank for encouraging you on your creative journey? Even if you’re not a writer, is there someone who has supported you more than anyone else as you pursue a life’s ambition or goal?