Celebrated author of children’s books and ELoH patron Ian Whybrow reflects on an ELoH he attended in 2013 and looks forward to an exciting new book release:
“It has been a great pleasure for me to support ELoH by doing a bit of fundraising and writing. The image that stays in my mind from my visit to Coteford School in Eastcote (apart from the concentration and gusto with which all the smalls entered into the spirit of their allotted athletic tasks) is of Pollyanna powering up and down the corridors on her new running blade.
I’ve now completed for Hodder – and just seen the illustrated proofs of – a new book of mine inspired by and dedicated to this amazing girl. It’s one of a series of Books for Boys and it breaks the mould rather in having a heroine as well as a hero. Her name is Aurora (“Rory”) Hope. Having lost her leg and her inheritance as a result of a bit of highway robbery, Rory breaks free of her bullying guardians and teams up with an equally feisty, determined, imaginative mudlark called Rollo (two “r”s, as in Terrific) in a rip-roaring adventure set on the river Thames in the 1870s. It’s called “Rory’s Piratical Leg” – and it’ll be out in the Spring. I’m hoping it’ll be a great little platform for spreading the word about the present day Hopes and their inspirational charity.”