My first children's book Ollie and His Friends and childhood.

My first children's book Ollie and His Friends and childhood.


We all remember our childhood. It was that period of idyllic contentment where everything seemed possible, where nothing seemed impossible, where the secrets and mysteries of life would confront us rather like those unwelcome strangers our parents always warned us against meeting. Yet we would build our tree houses in our gardens, run across parks and fields as if oblivious to time itself before eventually playing football and hopscotch until darkness fell.

Throughout our childhood time seemed to conveniently stand still, when back doors of homes were always flung wide open because crime and skulduggery were somehow alien to us. We threw ourselves wholeheartedly into our young lives confident in the knowledge that none would ever attack, harm us, maim or injure. We were the footloose and fancy free ones, allowed to engage, participate and freely indulge in the games and youthful frivolities that we would take to almost naturally and improvise on.

Of course these were exciting and adventurous times, racing around our local back roads on our bikes, throwing stones and pebbles onto the pavement, jumping around energetically for the best part of a day until mum and dad would invariably implore us to come in now and get ready for supper followed by bed. Then at another predictable point during the afternoon the ice-cream van would turn into our road, melodious tune ringing out its charming refrain.

And so it is that I'd like to remind you of my first childhood book called Ollie and His Friends. Ollie and His Friends is now available at Lulu.com and Barnes and Noble online.  There's Ollie the Oboe, Harry the Harp, Glenda the Guitar, Vince the Violin, Penny the Piano, Ricky the Recorder, Donald the Drum, and all of Ollie's musical instrument friends.

Yes, Ollie the Oboe is an Oboe. Now Ollie the Oboe, his family and young children Peter and Julie live in the country and love to get out and about. Ollie and His Friends is all about Ollie the Oboe who, along with his musical instrument friends, one day set out for a day to their local country village fete where they would all get up to all kinds of fun and mischief.

Let me tell you first of all that Ollie and His Friends love eating jam sandwiches and why ever not because you do tend to get peckish when you're hungry and it's almost lunchtime. Ollie and His Friends walk past the marrow competition where marrows are weighed up to determine who's got the biggest and heaviest marrow. They also get the chance to taste all of the jams and then play silly games with each other, laughing, joking and having a brilliant time with their family.

So there you are everybody. It's Christmas and Santa Claus is about to throw on that cumbersome looking red cloak before steering his reindeers onto some snow encrusted landscape. Eventually he'll reach some very accessible chimney, drop into some very festive living room and then go Ho Ho Ho!.

The fact is that it must be hoped that Santa will have my first children's book Ollie and His Friends in his sack. So if your children want a good, hearty chuckle and giggle, laugh and smile then Ollie and his musical instrument friends is a must for them. Ollie and His Friends is the perfect Christmas present for your children of that I have no doubt at all. They'll love Ollie the Oboe and his musical instrument friends.