When I was young, I wanted to be an author. My parents had a whole library of books and used to read to my brother and me every night. In fact, my father read to us way beyond the call of duty, until we were well into our teens. He would read the characters' words in a whole cast of voices, mainly with terrible accents, but we grew to recognise and love the stereotypes and their slight variants: the dumb hero; the wide boy; the boffin; the gruff northerner; and the token female voice.

The main reason I wanted to be an author was so that I could beat my father at something. He is clever, really clever. Whatever I learned at school or picked up from friends, he already knew. It was so infuriating at times. Even worse, he was quite sporty too; not athletic, in fact he was quite small, but he had a good all-round ability. Cycling, running, badminton, tennis, gym exercises, he was always better than me. That was why I wanted to be an author. He had published a couple of short story collections, but had never found a publisher for his novel. Being an author was my way of beating him, and I ran with it as hard as I could. I'm pleased to say that I finally beat him. My novels are quite successful, but I have never had a short story published. Maybe now he has given me one last chance, with these few words I'm writing here while I wait for my brother.

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