Tom Palmer visits Boys for World Book Day Celebrations

On Tuesday 28th February 2017 we welcomed author Tom Palmer in to school to talk to the boys about his work and to start the World Book Day celebrations.

All junior school and year 7 boys loved taking part in Tom’s rugby game, which gave them the thrill of competing in a sport and reading quiz, complete with rugby post and ball, to win a trophy. Congratulations to Cameron and Charlie!

As a child Tom saw no point in reading, unless it was to find out more about sport. The first book he remembers reading was the Illustrated History of Leeds United, although he did love football and rugby magazines and sport sections in the newspapers.

Before he became a full time writer, which took 20 years, he had several jobs, like a milkman when he had to get up at 3.30am, a bookseller, and working in library reading promotion, which enabled him to organise many book related events for children, like the Summer Reading Challenge.

He now loves reading, and his favourite book is Wuthering Heights. To children, he recommends the Alex Rider books by Anthony Horowitz and Michael Grant’s Gone series. Of all the many novels he has written, which now numbers over 40, his favourite is Over the Line, as it is about real people and he was able to visit the war grave of the main character. If he had to be one of his characters he would be the Spymaster in Black Op, as he made his daughter one of the other characters.

Although many of his novels have a football or rugby theme, with the characters playing in teams, he likes to incorporate other themes, like history, in Over the Line, set in the First World War, kidnapping and trafficking of footballers, in Off Side and corruption in sport, in Dead Ball. Many of his books have exotic settings, like White Fear which takes place in the Arctic. He loves travel and enjoys visiting places that he is going to use in his novels. Magazines are also a valuable part of his research, so he used Okay magazine to find out what footballers’ houses were like inside.

Apart from watching sport, Tom’s hobby is fell running, and he has finally achieved his ambition of using it in a story. His next hero is to be a fell runner who volunteers to be a trench runner in the First World War.