Nothing ever seems to go on in sleepy old Chiswick so when I heard that there was going to be an influx of great authors, I just had to pop along and see what all the fuss was about.

Luckily I managed to grab a few £3 tickets to a talk from a very popular children’s writer. And off we went to the Chiswick Book Festival last Sunday and attended a session hosted by Jacqueline Wilson.

She was very inspirational. She told the story of how as a teenager she went to study to become a secretary and then found a newspaper ad which was looking for articles from teenagers. She wrote in. She sent them stories. She got paid. She wrote a lot more and then, they gave her a job. It was a job with D C Thomson and she was to write for a new magazine. In fact they named it Jackie magazine, after her sweet self.

She was very engaging and even read from her tattered old diary which must be years old now. Then she began saying that she was initially inspired by reading I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith – which is actually what Miniminx and I are reading together at bedtime. That drew a gasp from both of us in fact.

Armed with books to sign, Miniminx and her two little friends joined the queue and waited patiently to get the signature of their favourite author.

It was lovely to watch their faces throughout the whole thing – they were full of anticipation, rapt when they spoke to her and delighted when she signed their books.

And, so was I!