David Rogers

I had a great childhood growing up near the very glamourous (at the time) Heathrow Airport. It all plays back in my head now like an old black and white film, but I remember stick sword-fighting with my Grandad in his beautiful garden when I was 10, then as a teen playing ‘war’ with friends over the local Donkey Woods with real airguns. I once got shot in my ear and couldn’t stand up because it ruined my balance for the rest of the day! At 16 it was all mopeds, girls, music shops, ice-skating in Richmond, then sneaking into the cinema underage to see X-rated horror films. Glory Days!

I always wanted to be an archaeologist but my parents didn’t dig it. I think that’s what attracted me to the premise of the feature-film I’m now producing, the wonderful book written by John Gordon way back in 1968 called The Giant Under The Snow. We hope to go in to production in 2022.

Reading. Whether that was reading books on the official syllabus or losing myself in the world of Marvel and DV Comics. Paperbacks, comics or newspapers – as long as you’re reading something, even if it isn’t something you don’t think you’ll like at first - then I genuinely think it helps broaden the mind and give you as a writer a much better insight into the sometimes ‘wading through treacle’ lonely heartache of writing.

They love it! As I started writing ‘CHOMP! Charlie Carter and the Monster Pike’ just before the first Lockdown in March 2020, they all knew the struggles I was contending with, as they were going through the same struggles, of course. But to see the faces light up when I present them with a signed hard-copy of my book is a great feeling. The fact that they all like the story and laugh in the bits they’re supposed to laugh in is reward in itself!

My brother is a keen angler and catches absolutely mammoth pike, often whilst sitting in 2 inches of snow. I went to visit him once when I was about 20 whilst he was pike fishing and he held up his keepnet to show me what he’d caught… and it was like a scene from Jaws! All thrashing water and big teeth leaping around in the net! That huge pike inspired me to write a ‘horror story for kids’.

So the story of ‘CHOMP! Charlie Carter and the Monster Pike’ has been lurking around in my head since those early days, and Lockdown gave me the unique opportunity to actually sit down and write a great adventure book for kids at long last.

The Covid pandemic was spreading all around the world at the time, of course, which meant that ALL my normal work (exhibition and event management) came to a sudden, grinding halt. This also meant that all my income came to a stop, too, so I had to exist on my savings and a ‘bounce-back loan’ from the UK Government. Looking back I don’t know how I did it… putting all the real world problems and life’s myriad logistics to one side and focusing on writing CHOMP was both a blessing and a curse wrapped up in one. Would I have written it without the pandemic? Perhaps not.

My wife (Jean) has been absolutely brilliant about my writing, and although she’s sometimes dying to tell me about her day she will always wait until I’ve finished writing the section I’m currently working on.

I did have ‘Own a Mustang Fastback’ on my bucketlist, but I bought myself one for my 50th birthday! The two burning things to do on my Bucket List now are: 1. See CHOMP! Charlie Carter and the Monster Pike made into a blockbuster feature film; and 2. See The Giant Under The Snow (the book I have optioned) made into a blockbuster film, as well. If I can do both those things and delight audiences around the world then I will die a happy man!!

Strangely, I like writing with a lot of noise around me! As I write this, I am surrounded with barking dogs playing tug-of-war and my wife hustling and bustling around me making dinner. I’ve got a lovely, quiet office upstairs but I often sit there and don’t write a thing!

Personally I think Governments around the world need to stop using the vaccine programme for their own political purposes and blaming other people for delays and restrictions in rolling the vaccine programme out. I also think that – although personal freedom is very important – that Governments should make having the vaccine mandatory otherwise Covid will continue to spread around the world. This is the only time when I believe that people’s freedom of choice should be overridden!

I absolutely adore John Gordon’s books (The Giant Under The Snow) as well as Alan Garner (The Weirdstone of Brisingamen) and for older readers, James Herbert (Fluke, the Rats). If I could write like them I would be very happy!

I like to leave every chapter with an ‘Oh my god what is going to happen next’ type dilemma and even give the reader a mis-direction in my writing – let them think one thing is going to happen but then something completely different happens.

I am currently writing the sequel to CHOMP and it’s all about Charlie again, but this time he meets a ghostly World War 2 bomber crew and dinosaur hunters from Earth’s future. It’s called ‘REARGUNNER! Charlie Carter and the Ghost Bomber’ and is due out later this year in Autumn 2021.

It’s a great platform for my work, and long may it continue!