John Simes

John Simes is an experienced teacher of English in state secondary schools. He has served as Principal in two of the UK’s largest comprehensive schools. He founded Collingwood Learning to advise on school improvement. In 2013, John set up Collingwood Publishing and Media Ltd. He now writes fiction and supports programmes in the UK and Africa to set up new schools. He lives with his family in south Devon where he grapples with his addictions to cricket, poetry and the stunning local landscape. Go to: www.johnsimes.co.uk to find out more. John loves feedback so email him at me@johnsimes.co.uk or find him on Twitter @johnthepoet2010.

That is on the cover of ‘The Dream Factory ~ Ghosts’. If you bought it I hope you really enjoyed it – there is little in life as satisfying as completing a piece of work that honestly says what you want it to say, and for someone else to enter that world with you. The exciting thing is that the folk walking through my world – gently nudging open the doorway, looking for the light switch, wondering where I keep my beer - will mostly be strangers to me. Or as Peter Young realises in the Dream Factory, ‘There are no strangers here – only friends whom we have yet to meet.’ So, welcome all, dear friends.

I have spent most of my life teaching and leading in schools. Some of my experiences as a child are recorded in The Dream Factory ~ Ghosts (I really did believe there was a ghost in my room!). For all that I was a very lucky child, loved by my mum, dad and sister and probably spoiled a bit; I realised later that I was a darn sight luckier than some of the children I was to encounter in the classroom.

As a child I used to dream. When I was given my ‘First Book of Poetry’, I really began dreaming, and I did all those things you probably did – or do. I lay on my bed looking at the cracks in the ceiling, imagining, roads, railways, paths, valleys, landscapes.

I taught children who dreamed, whose minds would wander to more stimulating – or safer – shores. Or they would confront the demons they had discovered were plaguing their lives, and slay them in their minds, all this while wearing a quiet smile and pretending to do maths – or, in my lessons, puzzling how to write a haiku, or grasp the idea that ‘necessary’ only has one ‘c’ in it, or that Piggy really was a genius.

Early life for me was in a council flat in Penge. Someone nicked my bike, and menacing-looking ‘Teddy boys’ smoking fags would gather round the children’s’ swings and slide and scare us away. As a child you are little more than a witness to events, streets, pubs, buildings, parks and a bewildering array of squabbling relatives that would arrive in hordes, eat cake, puff on Woodbines and then depart again. All this while I am imprisoned on the sofa, like a pet in a cage, when all I wanted to do was be climbing trees or hide under the table. A trip to the doctor meant listening to a long conversation before my sleeve was rolled up and I was jabbed in the arm.

Childhood baffled me. Perhaps I didn’t listen or adults never bothered to explain. What was church all about? And why was the priest holding that infant over a huge stone sink and dribbling water on its head? And what exactly am I praying to? Why am I asking for forgiveness when, as far as I could see, I hadn’t done anything wrong? What was sinful about putting a lighted banger under grandma’s chair? And Christmas – stranger still. One Christmas night, I hid behind my open bedroom door. A man came into my room. I leapt out and yelled. ‘Bugger!’ said Father Christmas, dropping the presents before dashing off.

And so followed a life in teaching working with young people - and it still goes on. The writing of the 'The Dream Factory ~ Ghosts' commenced in July 2004; it was late and I was in my office at my school where I was Principal. I had been playing around with ideas for a book and with the school so quiet, took a walk around the silent buildings. As was often the case, I was the last to leave; a school is a wonderful place to work but at night it can feel strange to be virtually on your own in such a large building that housed two thousands students and more than two hundred staff. And so it was that I walked the corridors, looking at children's work displays. Our best teachers always had lively interesting classrooms that created an appetite for learning; the children who entered felt the wonder and endless possibilities of learning. As I walked, every sound - a blind rattling, or notices flapping - was amplified down the echoing stairwells and corridors. It was an eerie but exciting.

Back in my office, I hesitated - about to grab my car keys to drive home. Instead, a voice in my head started to speak....and that was how it began! You can find out more at www.johnsimes.co.uk. For teaching resources and ideas, music and art, go to www.visithedreamfactory.com. Join me on Facebook and Twitter. Let's talk.