Author hide-outs

Michael Morpurgo

Michael Morpurgo sits on an upturned crate in a corner of an old barn on his own farm. He wears a thick white sweater and bright red trousers with black ankle boots. Round his neck hangs a scarf with soft pastel coloured stripes. He is turned a little to the right, reading a large book. His head is lowered towards it so his face doesn't show. The walls behind him are of ancient pink and yellow bricks and straw is heaped up beside him and round his feet. To the left is a very solid looking wooden door with a big lock and leaning against it are a hoe and a fork with some grubby old gardening gloves on the ground beside them. To the right is a tall wooden doorway with part of a high arched opening in it.

Here you will find the first Hotspot. In the first Hotspot, Michael is stretched out on top of a small bed, propped up on a pillow against a wood-lined wall, writing in a notebook. The duvet cover is patterned with pale blue and wine colours. Above his head is a line of small windows with lots of tiny panes of glass. When he stops writing to look out at you, his face looks weather-beaten, with pink cheeks. He has bright blue eyes. His short brown hair is parted on the side and combed across the top of his head, showing his wide forehead.

Move on. You will find a view of the farm through the enormous arch in the dark wooden doors. Just inside the doors on the right are two bits of farm equipment, a rusty blue trailer and a smaller toy version, green plastic with a pulling handle. Through the arch are bare branches and behind them a short round evergreen tree. The silhouette of a tiny bird stands out boldly on a pole that sticks out across the top of the doorway. Further on is a shed with a tin roof and beyond are distant fields.

Look about here for a Hotspot. Michael stands in a darkened room reading from one of his books, wearing a pale blue shirt. He is reading to some children, but they are hidden from view.

Move on past the arched doorway. Here is Michael in his red trousers filling a yellow bucket with chicken food from a big, battered looking metal chest. Beside it is a large corrugated iron tub with plastic sheeting stuffed into it and a rope spilling over the edge. Leaning on the brick wall of the barn and hanging up on it are various farming tools and ropes.

There is another Hotspot somewhere here. In this Hotspot, Michael is still talking to the unseen children in the darkened room. At one point in the story, he points at his own bottom with great excitement, his eyes sparkling.

Move on outside the barn to find some wheelbarrows leaning up on their front wheels against a wooden fence that crosses the picture. They are on the right. On the left, close to you, is a clump of trees with thin trunks and bare branches. Behind the fence across the yard is a low white building with two skylights in a corrugated roof that is spotted with lichen. On the right in the distance is part of an old house, three storeys high with pointed gables, painted palest pink.

Have a look around for the next Hotspot. In this Hotspot you are taken back into the little room to find Michael sitting on the bed. The walls on the way in are white with lots of children's writing and pictures on them. Through the window there is a view of the arched barn door below and a sheep and a pig wandering free on the grass.

Move on into the yard. Here is the rest of the tall pink house in the background and in the wide yard in front are more wheelbarrows and a mud-spattered trailer. Some pigs are busily poking their noses through a fence so they show just their curly tails. A lone pig trots across the yard to join them. On the right is the front end of a red tractor that looks as if it works very hard in muddy fields.

There is another Hotspot here. Michael is still talking to the unseen children in this Hotspot. He waves his arms about with great enthusiasm to help the story on.

Move on. Here is Michael sitting on the tractor smiling at you. He is wearing a dark grey waterproof jacket and a black beret flat on top of his head. Behind him is an L-shaped red-brick barn.

You will find a Hotspot somewhere about. In this Hotspot, Michael perches on the tractor to read a story to two black and white cows. A tiny calf with big soft eyes trots about between them, flicking its white tail to and fro.

Move on. The yard widens out to show two curved walls leading over a bridge to the outside world, a green hill with the ghosts of two minute trees far in the distance. In the yard is the toy green tractor, its forklift loaded with hay and a yellow trailer on the back.

Look about for the last Hotspot. In the last Hotspot, Michael sits in an armchair in the little room with some of the many children who visit him on his farm. There are boys and girls, black, white and Asian, all sitting at Michael's feet. The first girl to speak is Asian, with large brown eyes and dark hair falling to her shoulders. She wears a striped sweater and has a fine gold chain round her neck. The second girl has a round, pale face, brown eyes and hair parted in the middle, falling to her ears. She wears a black zip up jacket, the collar high up round her neck.

Move on, back into the old brick barn and there is Michael, sitting on the crate in his red trousers, still absorbed in his book, but ready to start again if you want to.