I am the author, Georgia Byng. I’ve been writing books since I was six years old. My first book was called IN SOME OF THE NINETIES. It was inspired by a rude poem that was going round the school playground.

It was not very sophisticated. As you can see from its back cover, I called it A LADDER BOOK. Here are a few of the pages from this book, though not the very rude page.

I thought this book was a work of genius. It made my friends laugh and I liked that. I didn’t show it to my teacher. I did show it to my mum and dad and they were very impressed so all in all it was a successful book and that upbeat feeling after writing it and people reading it got me to carry on writing. At school I used to like illustrating my books. I liked illustrating as much as writing. At my primary school the teachers loved it when we illustrated our stories. This was a very happy time of my life. I lived in the country, in a village outside a city called Winchester. I had two brothers and a sister. We were all quite naughty though I wasn’t as naughty as my younger brother and sister, Jamie and Tara. Jamie used to throw eggs at people if he got the chance. Tara was extra naughty once and actually took our mum’s car out on the road. She drove it down the new motorway that hadn’t been opened to the public yet. She opened the gate and drove the car onto it. Yes, extremely naughty, in fact all against the law, so I do not advise you do that or you might end up in prison. Also you might have a crash. She didn’t. She got the car home and my mum didn’t even know about it until years later when Tara told her. My older brother, William was into Dungeons and Dragons. It’s a fantasy board game, the sort of game they play in the TV show, Stranger Things. We used to go to his room and he’d take us down into the dungeons he’d invented. It was brilliant.

Dad was a river keeper and always on the river, looking after it. He was great because he was very relaxed. He never ever got cross and he always had loads of sweets in the car. Toffees and fruit pastels and fudge. He was a cool dude. Our mum was amazing. She was a councillor and so helped make sure that the town Winchester was well-run. She used to have to go to restaurants to check that they were clean without rats and cockroaches eating everything before the customers did. She also stopped the theatre in Winchester from being pulled down and being turned into a car park. She was very nice and is still a great mum, though now she is quite wrinkled and old. Here is a picture of us all on a trip to London when I was about six years old. We are feeding the pigeons. My mum had the picture made into a puzzle. I’m not sure where the original picture is. I am the one on the right.

Here is another picture of me working in the garden. I liked to make things. I carried my paints and craft stuff around in that pram.

When I was twelve years old I went to a boarding school that I did not like at all. You know I told you that the teachers at my junior school loved my illustrations in the stories I wrote? Well, at the big school I went to the teachers got very cross if I put any pictures in my books. They were definitely not cool.

In fact the teachers at my senior school were, on the whole, horrible. Far worse than teachers these days. You don’t know how lucky you are. My teachers were really grumpy and actually mean. There was a girl in my class who all the teachers picked on. I felt so sorry for her and tried to stand up for her but it’s difficult when you are only twelve and the teachers are a like a nasty gang. Years later when I wrote a book about a child hypnotist called Molly Moon, I based Molly on the bullied girl at my boarding school because I thought that of all the people I knew, she was the one who most deserved becoming a great hypnotist. That book was called MOLLY MOON’S INCREDIBLE BOOK OF HYPNOTISM. You can still get this book.

I’ve written lots of other books too but I have jumped a few years if I start talking about them so let me get back to where I was.

Yes, the dreadful boarding school. By the way this school still exists and is a friendly place now. Not the nightmare place that it was when I was young. After my boarding school, I went to a day school for sixth form in Winchester. I liked that. My mum got remarried to a great person called Christopher. My dad and him liked each other too so that was good. Then I got a half brother, so that was an added bonus. His name is Archie. After that, I went to The Central School of Speech and Drama. I loved acting. It was a brilliant three years. But when I left there I soon realised that acting is hard because there are loads of people who want every part and it is all very competitive. I got a few parts, some television and theatre but nothing much so to make a living I did Puppet Parties for people who wanted an entertainer and puppet shows at their children’s birthday parties. I did Archie’s party once and he loved it. After that I started writing more and more. And soon I didn’t want to be an actor.

I have written lots of books that never got published. Never mind. They are in a bottom drawer and maybe one day I will get them published. In fact the book ALBI THE GLOWING COW BOY was something I started 23 years ago then put away in a box. Now look, it is finished and published!

On the way I’ve had three children. First, my daughter called Tiger who is now a yoga teacher and a massage person. Then came Lucas who is at Oxford University learning about all the religions in the world. And then Sky who wants to be a baker and is mad about bread. He is still at school and so lives at home, so when he is here, lovely smells of freshly baked bread waft upstairs while I am working. I have a stepson now too called Stan who is a musician and a neuroscientist.

I love growing things. My kitchen is like a jungle. I talk to my plants and they grow more. I think it’s the carbon dioxide coming out of my mouth. (You breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide and the plants like sucking up our carbon dioxide.. Then they turn it into oxygen. Brilliant. And incidentally that is why we must grow LOADS more plants and plant LOADS more trees, to suck up all the carbon dioxide that is making this planet hot).

I have just moved to a house in the country. And plan to grow lots of different sorts of vegetables. I also want to get a couple of pet cows – small, very furry ones that look like ALBI!

About the illustrator, Angela Cogo.

Angela Cogo is a brilliant illustrator. She did all the pictures on the inside of the book Albi the Glowing Cow Boy, and the ones on this website too. When she has a moment I hope she will write something here about how her life has been and is and something about what it is like being an illustrator too.