I found Selby's Joke Book in my teenage son's bookshelf. Inside the front cover, there were inscriptions which told me the book had once belonged to a young girl, Grace. Judging by the handwriting in pencil, phonetic spelling, and her knock-knock joke, Grace was very young when she wrote in it.

Wannabe writers and aspiring authors are always looking for writing tips. I've bought books, attended classes, read blogs, listened to podcasts, and printed pointers from the web. But as with the forest for the trees idiom, it can be hard to find useful tips among a wealth of well-meaning advice.

When I was five-years-old, my parents separated, and my little brother and I moved in to live with our grandparents. While our Nan embraced her two young grandsons with warm grandmotherly arms, our Pop could be standoffish and a little scary, especially when angry with a couple of "naughty boys".