I disliked school and loved the library, a little square building in which I dreamed that books with my name on them would stand one day on the shelves. I scribbled stories and stitched them into little books. I trembled at the images presented to us in church, at the awful threats and glorious promises made by black-clad priests with Irish voices. I sat with my grandfather in his allotment, held tiny Easter chicks in my hands while he smoked his pipe and the factory sirens wailed and larks yelled high above. We promised never-ending friendship and whispered of the amazing journeys we'd take together. We scared each other with ghost stories told in fragile tents on dark nights. I ran with my friends through the open spaces and the narrow lanes. I listened to the gossip that filled Dragon's coffee shop.

I listened to the stories and songs at family parties. 'I grew up in a big extended Catholic family.

It was a place that had everything necessary for the imagination. From our windows, we looked out towards the city that packed the opposite bank, towards the distant sea, and even on clear days toward the hazy Cheviots an eternity away. It was a small steep town with wild heather hills at the crest and the River Tyne flowing far below. I used to point and grin and gurgle as the pages of the local newspaper rolled off the machines. I don't remember it, of course, but as a baby in my mother's arms I used to visit my uncle's printing works on the narrow high street of our town. He once commented: 'Maybe ink was always in my blood. Like the hero in Skellig, Almond grew up on the fringes of a Northern English city, a landscape that offered great imaginative possibilities for him as a youth.

David almond first book