To all my Scabbajack fans at Roughwood Primary, may I first apologise for taking so long to get back to you. I received

so many wonderful letters back in April and I’ve only just got round to reading them.  I’ve been so busy charging around schools all over the place, and that’s my only excuse.

On a positive note, the letters were brilliantly written and a real credit to the teaching in the school.

I hope you like the pic of me holding all your letters and artwork outside my secret office somewhere in deepest Rotherham. You can even see the Scabbajack boy lurking behind me!

What I loved about your letters was the way you had remembered all the exciting bits of my story and how they’d scared you, but you couldn’t wait to read on and find out how things turned out. That makes me as an author really proud. After all, my job is to build the suspense and intrigue and keep you reading on and turning the pages!

Lots of you said you would like to meet me, so I’m going to get in touch with a friend of mine at your school; I’m sure you know him – Mr Cadman – and ask if I can come along to Roughwood as soon as possible. I love being back at Kimberworth Park – after all, I was born and brought up there. Does anyone know Leybourne Road?

Well that’s all for now. Thank you again for writing to me – I read EVERY letter and admired EVERY piece of artwork. Hope you enjoyed the end of Scabbajack and can’t wait to see you all and tell you about the next new book.

Keep on reading and keep on writing and I’ll keep on writing more and more scary books! As one of you said to me in your letter, ‘Scabbajack gave me nightmares for a few nights, but it was worth it…I loved the book and can’t wait to read more!’  Brilliant!

Pete

Before our three visits in the week ahead to new schools (to us!) in nearby Bracknell, Kath and I spent a Sunday in Salisbury. Not what you might regard as a spooky place to get new ideas for scary books! But then you’d be wrong! After wandering around this beautiful, historic city, we called into the stunning cathedral to have a look round.

Suddenly…my sixth sense told me I was being watched!

The display of sinister watching figures over on one side of the vast cathedral space was awesome! I half expected to see them turn their heads as Kath and I crept past! Cathedrals and old churches always leave me with a strange mix of feelings…peaceful, timeless, sometimes definitely spooky and occasionally an inspiration for one of my books. Those fans of mine who have read Bonebreaker, will be familiar with the line drawing of the three skeletons and three knights having a conversation – taken from an ancient wall mural in a church within the deepest Norfolk marshes. I will never forget the impact that image made on my imagination.

The next day found us relaxing again in readiness for the first trip to Bracknell, a little-known town to us, despite it being relatively close to our Berkshire base. The school in question was Jennett’s Park, within a fairly new development and only six years old. One of the Deputy Headteachers, Carla, knows us from our visits to her previous school in Newbury, and had no worries about the impact we would have on our new audience. We covered two of our books –  Bonebreaker and Ten O’ Clock Caller and both books went down a storm. Several of the children even dressed up as Saxons and were attacked by the imposing figure of the huge Viking warrior, Sigard – ‘Even his own live in fear of him.’ We returned the next day to do a ‘huge’ book-signing and it seems that the whole of this school community are now burying their heads into our scary narratives...brilliant.

We have also learnt that since our visit, the children are desperate to write their own stories, and to hear this always makes our visits so much more worthwhile. MASSIVE thanks to Joy, Carla, David and all of the staff and pupils for giving us such a fab welcome. We can’t wait to be back…see you all soon.

Our second Bracknell school visit was to Fox Hill Primary. The Headteacher, Mrs Coxell, was waiting at the door to

greet us and we soon got the idea that this school is determined to become one of the best! The children were extra polite and friendly and had us a cup of tea, set up and all ready to go with our presentation within minutes.

We performed the Bonebreaker presentation in the first half and some of the children joined me on stage and acted the parts brilliantly. In the second half we wowed our fab audience with spooky tales from my Ten O’ Clock Caller collection. It was a lovely experience for Kath and I to work with Mrs Coxell and her staff and hopefully we have already helped to make a difference in raising the enthusiasm of the Fox Hill pupils to read and write their own stories. We look forward to returning next academic year to wow them again with our Mokee Joe Finale Tour.

Have a lovely summer everyone!

PJM

The time had arrived for our return to the Isle of Man…not for the famous TT races, but to take our newest book, Kruschmeister, over the Irish Sea to our army of Manx fans.

We stayed in a lovely residence in Onchan and it really proved a ‘home from home’ for us during our ten day stay. Thank you to Paula, our IOM landlady!

Our visits were to Rushen, Kirk Michael, St John’s, Dhoon and Bunscoill Rhumsaa primary schools…all friends of ours and wonderful schools to be back with. Our chosen books were Bonebreaker and Kruschmeister and we just happened to have our brand new Kruschmeister posters with us, hot off the press only a few days before our voyage over to the island.

All of the schools gave us a great welcome and the presentations had our fans on the edge of their seats…borne out by the extensive book-signings that took place afterwards. Isle of Man Year 3’s proved tough to say the least and showed no signs of being overcome by the scariness and fictional violence contained in the narratives.

In between our visits, we took lots of opportunities to explore the island and staying over the weekend gave us plenty of time to travel around and see some of the beautiful sights…all enhanced by the almost freakish early summery weather!

We love the environs of Rushen School and visited the nearby Port Erin, Port St

Mary and the fabulous Rushen Abbey. Kirk Michael School gave us an excuse to nip over to Peel and have more than one ice cream sitting out on the promenade looking across to the ancient castle. Dhoon School always seems to send us across the road and heading off down to the isolated coves hidden along the dramatic coastline (real Viking attacking scenery!). This time we also made the walk down Dhoon Glen and back…beautiful, but exhausting! And Burnscoill Rhumsaa saw us heading over the mountain road more than once with Snaefell hovering over us temptingly…but we never made the top on this occasion!

We met so many lovely people during our stay on the island…everyone so friendly and welcoming. Big thanks to Rosie, Chloe and Henry at Bunscoill Rhumsaa…librarians par excellance! To Angela, of the Bridge Bookshop in Ramsay – we look forward to working with her in the future. All best wishes to the Heads of Rushen and Kirk Michael, Tom and Tony, for a long and well-earned retirement (hope you enjoy the Kruschmeister books – a little light reading!)

…And finally…we are so thrilled to have already made the reservation to return during World Book Week, in March 2018, to enthuse all of our Manx Mokee Joe fans with our forthcoming new (and final) Mokee Joe book.

CAN’T WAIT!!

PJM

Kath and I headed up to one of our favourite parts of the country…the Yorkshire Dales!

We took a lovely self-catering cottage in the brewery town of Masham – a truly quaint English Dales village.

As I write this blog the town is preparing for the big cycle race (Tour Yorkshire) to pass through tomorrow. I hope we get to see a bit of it.

Our first school visit in this great part of the world was just a short distance away…Sharow, near Ripon. The school was small and linked up with another nearby school, Skelton – Newby Hall. They say lovely things come in small packages, and these schools were truly a joy to work with. They lapped up our scary books, BONEBREAKER and MOONWAILER, and we threw in our scary short story collection – TEN O CLOCK CALLER – for good measure. The following day found us returning to both schools to sign lots of books for avid readers. Thank you to Ms Lowe for taking the trouble to book us for this visit – especially after seeing us at two previous schools which she’s worked at. Ms Lowe must be a ‘glutton for punishment’ as they say!

Next, it was time to head north of Masham to Leyburn Community School, old friends of ours. We love this school! The children and staff are always so enthusiastic and can’t get enough of our scary books. It was such a shame that the werewolf boy, Moonwailer, threatened to make a night time call to one of the teachers at the school, Mr Greenway. I was quick to supply him with a few silver bullets to protect himself, but I’m not too sure he will survive the impending attack. We will find out tomorrow…so watch this space to find out what happens!

Bye for now…Kath and I are off to a fab ice cream parlour on the way back to our Masham cottage…well away from Mr Greenway and the Moonwailer!

 

* Sad to report that Mr Greenway DID fall victim to the vicious Moonwailer! He managed to scare the beast-boy away with the threat of silver bullets and such, but not before being mauled as shown by his injuries in the picture. Sorry, Mr Greenway, but you did choose to live and teach in the land of the werewolf, so it’s not all my fault!

PJM

Our last school visit in the run-up to the Easter break was to a new school to us, St Paul’s RC Primary, on the Newbury-Reading border. Kath and I were made more than welcome and soon found ourselves in front of a VERY enthusiastic KS2 audience. As this was our first visit, I talked about how I became an author under the most unusual of circumstances and this led nicely into a full-blown Mokee Joe presentation. The children and staff seemed captivated  and interacted perfectly during the performance.

The morning passed only too quickly and we were soon sipping coffee in nearby Pangbourne musing over how much we had enjoyed the experience. We returned to St Paul’s the next day to carry out a book-signing and that went equally well. So many children waiting to get their heads into our books…Great!

The Headteacher, Mrs Oster, was proud to point out to us that St Paul’s came out top in the West Berkshire schools re SATS results…and Miss Todd was keen to share with us how important literacy is regarded at the school. Neither of these statements surprised us  – it proved such a good school to finish off our hectic schedule of author visits stretching way back to Christmas.

A BIG thank you to all at St Paul’s from us both. We hope you really enjoy the books and hope to see you again soon.

PJM

After a few days in glorious Gosforth up in the NE, we returned South to Chesterfield to visit a favourite school of ours, Brimington Juniors. The Year 6’s from nearby Mary Swanwick School (another favourite school of ours) came over and joined in the presentation – KRUSCHMEISTER and BONEBREAKER. It was the first time I’ve presented these two books together and it went really well. After all, the villains in both stories are true ‘bonebreakers’ in every sense!

The audience were brilliant and got into my storytelling in a BIG way…borne out by the never-ending book signing the next

day! During the proceedings I was introduced to a devoted fan, Alfie. Not only did Alfie know intimately all of my books,

but he had some great ideas of his own. I wonder if one day he’ll become a horror-writer like me! Best of luck, Alfie.

It was nice to pop in to Chesterfield to do a spot of shopping and take in the view of the famous crooked spire…it never ceases to amaze me! There must be a good spooky story somewhere involving that strange old steeple.

Time to head further south back to our Berkshire base for some R and R. It’s been a hectic, but amazing last few weeks centred around World Book Week – long may it last!

PJM

Monday – St Peter’s in Huntingdon, Tuesday – Denbigh Primary in Luton, Wednesday – Beech Hill Primary in Luton, Thursday, World Book Day -Bolsover C of E in Bolsover near Chesterfield and Friday – St Joseph’s Primary in Chesterfield. PHEW! A ‘manic’ World Book Week, but seriously brilliant! One of our best weeks ever!

I’m proud to be Patron of Reading in St Peter’s high school, but when they asked me to work with Year 10’s I was very unsure

how it would go. But do you know what – the group of boys that turned up were nothing short of a-mazing! Some of the work they produced centred around a spooky pic I presented them with was mind-blowingly good! I hardly dare tell them, but I mentally stored some of their ideas for my own books!  The Year 7’s and 8’s and reading groups that also turned up during my day visit were equally fab to work with. Thank you to St Peter’s for welcoming Kath and I back again and to Rachel and Lisa (the lovely librarians) for looking after us so well. We can’t wait to be back in July with our new Mokee Joe book and poster, with images inspired by some of the Year 10 girls. See you soon.

Tuesday found us at Denbigh Primary School in Luton. It’s a great school to work in as the pupils really love our books. We did a big Mokee Joe presentation for around 150 Year 5’s and 6’s followed by some great workshops during which I passed on tips for writing spooky stories as well as answering load of questions. All in all a great day and a very fulfilling one. We returned the next day to do a big book-signing, but not before calling in at our old friends at nearby Beech Hill Primary to do a one-hour Mokee Joepresentation for a VERY enthusiastic Year 4 audience. It was lovely to see Gary Hawkins and Linda Carey again and to catch up on all the ‘goss’. We LOVE the Luton schools…can’t wait to be back!

NO TIME TO REST – World Book Day next – and what better place to spend it than with our friends at Bolsover C of E Juniors near Chesterfield. Ms Bailey was waiting to welcome us and a short while later we had the entire school and staff in front of us to launch into our Kruschmeister/Scabbajack presentation. All of the pupils turned up dressed as book characters and the atmosphere in the hall was ‘electric’ to say the least. The morning passed too quickly and before we knew it it was all over and Kath and I found ourselves in a lovely cosy café in a little cobbled courtyard in Bolsover, tucking into an ‘all-day’ breakfast! Fab-u-lous!  The next day we did a mega book signing which went on for most of the afternoon. What a World Book Day! Thanks x 1000 to all at Bolsover C of E.

Their sister school, St Joseph’s, is a smaller one-form entry primary, but the level of enthusiasm for our presentation and

books was on the same scale for our last visit of the week on the Friday. It was a great way to round off an amazing World Book Week and we can’t wait to be back at St Jo’s to sign books on our return from the North East in a week’s time.

 

Over the week we received lots of e-mails from pupils and parents telling us of the many fans that dressed up as our book characters during World Book Week and that, of course, makes us VERY proud. Thank you to all of you for giving us so much encouragement and support to carry on producing our books.

I thought I would finish off this blog entry on  real high by showing you below a lovely e-mail I just received from Birch Copse School, a school quite close to our Berkshire base in the South:

Message : Dear Mr Peter J Murray,
Hi my name is Tia Chapman. I come from Birch Copse School that you visited last term. I am writing to say that at our school everyone is enjoying your wonderful books! We are reading your books and some of us are even writing them for our best book for our review for a competition! All i wanted to say is that our school is really enjoying books

Thank you for taking your time to read my letter

Your sincerely
Tia Chapman (Student of Birch Copse) (Pupil of year 5) and the rest of Birch Copse

Thank you, Tia, for making my day. I’ll be back again as soon as I can and I can’t wait to read your book reviews (as long as their good ones!)

PJM

It’s that time of year again when Kath and I head off to Bradford to spend a week with a school that has a reading culture to be proud of – Whetley Academy. We stay in a beautiful place only ten minutes from inner-city Bradford; a lovely converted mill close to Howarth and the Howarth Moors. Unlike previous years, this time the weather was more kind to us and the ice and snow stayed away.

The focus this year was very much on our newest book, KRUSCHMEISTER. There’s even an acknowledgement in the book to the school for having supplied us with some useful information to incorporate in the story. Needless to say the book went down a storm, as did the countless workshops working with Years 5 and 6 over our three day stay. I always feel like a pop idol at this school, the pupils are so appreciative and not afraid to show it!

It was great to see yet more great artwork around the school, courtesy of the executive head’s talented sister. We

particularly liked the iconic pics of pop stars around the media centre in the big hall.

A big thank you to all of the staff and pupils for making us so welcome (as usual) and hopefully we will be back again next year with our new Mokee Joe book and a stunning presentation to go with it.

PJM

Our concentration on local schools continued with visits to Hermitage Primary, Burghfield St Mary’s and Springfield Primary. And in between visiting  these lovely schools, we still somehow managed to work with our fab set of Year 3’s at Francis Baily Primary School where I’m currently their ‘Author in Residence’. So a busy week to say the least.

Hermitage Primary are ‘old friends’ and it was great to be back with them again, this time performing our Bonebreaker presentation to a keen KS2 audience. The children participated really well and the atmosphere in the hall was ‘magic’. Part 2 of the presentation was centred around our super-scary short story collection – Ten O’ Clock Caller, and again, this went down a storm. I suspect after our mega book-signing the next day, many avid Hermitage readers were careful to read in bed AFTER ten O’ clock!

Thanks to staff and pupils and especially to Ms Turner for looking after us so well. We’ll be back…

Burghfield St Mary’s and Springfield Primary are new  to us and it’s more than pleasing to report that both schools were a real pleasure to work with. We’ve since heard from staff and parents  that the children are still ‘buzzing’ about our books and that lots of reluctant readers now have their heads buried in our spooky novels…GREAT! That’s what it’s all about! Thanks again to the staff and pupils for making us so welcome.

The following week found us heading down to Kent to work with a cluster of schools under the heading of the Valley Invicta Schools. Ms Sarah Bone is our ‘hostess with the mostess’ and she now books us annually for National Story-telling Week to visit her four schools. Three of the four schools are brand new as part of newly developed housing projects in the area. It’s very exciting for us to ‘grow’ with the schools and each year our KS2 audience will increase…lots of new fans in the making!  This year (our second year), our son, Simon, made the journey with us and he enthused and entertained the younger KS1 audiences with his colourful Icky Doo Dah books. We felt very proud to hear the amazing feedback he received during  the week and he has already been booked to return with us next year. Yeah….keep it in the family…that’s what I say!

During our stay in Kent it was a cold, drab miserable week weather-wise, but the schools were great. It was real thrill to

receive a beautifully hand-written letter from one of my biggest fans at Aylesford Primary and I’ve decided to frame it for my office wall. A BIG ‘thank you’ to Josie…good luck to you and the other pupils currently entered for the BBC 500 words writing competition. Thanks also to everyone at Kings Hill, Leybourne Chase and Holborough Lakes for ensuring we had such a ‘brill’ time. Can’t wait to see you all again next year.

Well…it was back to rural Berkshire to fight off cold and flu germs before travelling back up North, in readiness head on up to Bradford to work for three days with Whetley Academy. This school single-handedly inspired much of my latest Kruschmeister book, so I can’t wait to get up there and tell them all about it!

Oops…it’s snowing as I write…hope we make it!

PJM

Working in local West Berkshire schools goes on…and Kath and I can’t get enough of it!

We started another busy week at Welford and Wickham Primary and they brought across their sister school, Stockcross Primary. The two KS2 audiences of around 60 pupils combined beautifully to set the scene for one of our dramatic Mokee Joe presentations. The weather outside was dire…incessant pouring rain. But inside Welford and Wickham primary it was a very different atmosphere – spooky, humorous and, most important of all – great fun!

Tuesday found us at another wonderful local school, Chieveley Primary. We’ve bypassed Chieveley many times

whilst driving up and down the A34, but this time we headed off to find out what this school was like. We were not disappointed! We found the school full of avid readers and with a Headteacher with northern roots (Lancashire)…we couldn’t go wrong! Again we used Mokee Joe to stir up our audience, and the book-signing the next day almost broke records! Many of our new fans presented us with work of their own based on Mokee Joe and I took a pic of some of their efforts…hope you like it. Big thanks to Ellie, Evie, Nathaniel, Grace for their artwork and to Maxwell, Mostyn and Eliot for their great 3-d model of Mokee Joe.

Wednesday found us at Long Lane Primary in Purley, a school we already had fond memories of from a previous visit. They proved just as fantastic a second time and loved our Bonebreaker presentation. This was followed by a mass workshop centred on writing short scary stories. We used our Ten O’ Clock Callerbook for the workshop and I was VERY cruel

and kept leaving the audience on cliff hangers. Needless to say, the pupils were desperate to get hold of the book the next day during our signing! A big thank you to everyone at Long Lane for making me ‘Author of the Month’ and for putting upwith all my scary antics!

Final call of the week was to Kennet Valley Primary The Head teacher is someone we met at the beginning of my

author career some 12 years ago. Mrs Devine has long been a fan of ours and it was great to meet up with her again out in the wilds of the Newbury/Reading borders. The school loved this, our first visit, during which we wowed them with Mokee Joe. And the signing on Friday morning rounded off a perfect week – so many books signed for such a relatively small school!

Thank you to all staff and pupils at each of these fab local schools.  I feel confident in saying a good time was had by all…and certainly a good time was had by us. See you all again soon.

PJM