MARION SAUVEBOIS meets Joffre White, the “reluctant reader” turned author, who is now spreading his love of the written word as Swindon’s first ever Patron of Reading and Writing

AS a child Joffre White was a reluctant reader – and an unrepentant one at that.

Until one day his father came home with a Beano comic and struck a deal with the seven-year-old. If he sat down and read the magazine cover to cover, he would treat him to the next issue.

“I was enthralled,” chuckles the 64-year-old author of children’s fantasy saga Frog.

“I remember sitting in my little bedroom peeling through it. It introduced me to Dennis the Menace and The Bash Street Kids.

“My poor old dad found it really hard to get me reading at the time.

“I was terrible at school. He was worried I would fall behind.

“Nothing inspired me, until he brought home The Beano.”

True to his words his father rewarded him with the next instalment of the comic strip.

Soon the Trowbridge schoolboy discovered to the Eagle and Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future’s captivating adventures in space.

By the age of 10, he was entering his first story in a school writing competition.

The short tale regaled the reader with the journey of a £5 note blown from its peg on the drying line at a money-printing factory.

“The note blows off and gets stuck to a workman’s boot. Then it is blown off again and gets stuck to a dog collar.

“Eventually a shopkeeper sends it back to the factory. I remember it clear as day. It won second place.”

His burgeoning gift for storytelling was overshadowed by his dream of becoming a pop star and/or thespian as a teenage boy.

He bought a bass guitar from a friend in 1965 and began performing in village halls with his rock band The Systems.

“When I was in senior school in the 1960s things started to happen musically. So I decided I would be a pop star or an actor.

“My mate got a bass guitar and realised he didn’t want it and of course he convinced me to pay £5 for it.”

In the 1970s he joined the fledgling Village Pump Folk Club and was at the fateful meeting which heralded the birth of its now established festival. He went on to tour the West Country with the Stone Gallows alongside Village Pump founding member John Alderslade.

To make ends meet, Joffre and a group of friends soon found work as extras on television.

You would be hard-pressed to spot him in any of the BBC and HTV programmes he featured in, however.

The only way to earn a steady stream of TV jobs back then was to conceal your face, according to Joffre. Too much exposure and you may not be ‘reused’ by a particular show.

Using this ploy, he was cast as three different characters in an adaptation of Jamaica Inn, starring Jane Seymour.

In 1982, he opted to leave his itinerant days behind to make a more stable living. He was recruited by an insurance company in Trowbridge.

He was later hired by an insurance firm in London where he swiftly rose through the ranks. During that time his son Chris was born.

Unlike his father, the little boy was a voracious reader devouring mounds of books each week. His parents had to run back and forth to the library just to keep up with him.

One Wednesday night, as Joffre prepared for their weekly bedtime story, he found himself in a bit of a pickle. Chris has read absolutely every book in his room.

“So he said ‘Tell me a story, about magic or dragons, or something but put me in it,” recalls Joffre, who moved to Frome 18 years ago.

“That’s how it started. I made up a 10-minute story and every Wednesday night became ‘Frog night’.

“The basic story was about an 11-year-old boy who is star-gazing when he sees something landing in his garden and the next morning he uncovers a suit of armour. “He touches it and the knight comes alive.

“He explains to him he was imprisoned on earth by a witch and comes from a medieval dimension.

“He takes the boy called Chris through time and space, where he meets a wizard.

“There was this prophecy about a boy who would come and stop the baddie in the story. That’s Chris. He gets renamed Frog to disguise his identity.”

When Joffre was made redundant two years later, he began offering his services as a freelance trainer, helping the unemployed to build up their CVs and confidence.

Left with an unusual amount of free time on his hands between contracts, he started writing down Frog’s adventures.

Two years and nine rejection letters later, the first tome of the Frog series was released by Book Guild Publishing.

“I never thought in a million years it would happen.

“Everybody has to find their own way in life.

“Some people know straight away what they want, others take a bit more time to get there.”

He visited a couple of local schools in a bid to introduce his novel to his young public.

But far from a promotional spiel, each visit invariably turned into a motivational workshop encouraging pupils to lose themselves in a good book.

Before he knew it, Joffre was travelling across the South West extolling the joys of reading and holding writing workshops.

“I think as an author you have a responsibility to inspire children to read, write and use their imagination. If you think reading is boring, you just haven’t found the right book.

“I didn’t go into schools to say ‘I’m an author, here’s my book.’ It was about inspiring children to pick up a book and go on an adventure.

“Whatever they’re interested in, there is a book written about it.

“A book is knowledge and knowledge is power.”

Following a few such “shows”, as he refers to them, in Swindon he was appointed the town’s very first Patron of Reading and Writing in 2014.

Last March he launched The Patron’s Writing Ambassadors – a short story and poetry competition – across Swindon’s 11 secondary schools.

Its theme, tolerance, was inspired by a chance encounter with Doreen Lawrence, the mother of murdered teenager Stephen. The judging took place in May.

“Not enough writers try to influence the next generation.

“It’s about influencing their hopes, dreams and confidence; and showing them how important using their imagination and putting pen to paper can be in their lives.

“Writers write about what they know, what they see, what they feel, about life.

“Kids have that life experience already, but they don’t always realise how much they know.”

The third Frog novel is due to be published at the end of the year. Joffre is currently working on the fourth and final instalment.

l If you would like to find out more about the Frog series, or to buy copies, visit joffrewhite.com