GO FOR IT!

Looking back, it had to be a good friend of mine, the late

Stewart MacLeod, a writer, who’s kids got me started on

what would become an extension of my work.

I’d visit him whenever I found myself in Ottawa, our

nation’s capital.

The kids wouldn’t let me out of the house without

telling them stories they insisted I make up on the spot.

It wasn’t until I came home to Woodbridge from

working in Montreal much later when my nephews and niece, David,

Michael, Matthew and Belinda --– all grown-up now -- insisted

I tell them bedtime stories. With a twist!

They’d give me the plot and I had to make up stories based

on their ideas.

I’d sit with them in pyjamas and away I’d go. I’d be scolded

by their parents if I kept them up well past their bedtimes.

Author’s comment: These had to be good with definitive

plotlines: beginnings that caught their imaginations. A middle

keeping the plot moving and endings they never expected.

Why I never wrote them down at the time, I’ll never know.