I wish I’d taken a video of Russell, dressed as a “Twilight” vampire, reading the Roald Dahl short stories he choose for story time with the school children. On my advice he told them all he’d forgotten to get a costume and dropped his smouldering vampire stare. We didn’t want them terrified.

Russell is a natural with the little ones and is a great actor. He had all the voices and the actions to go with the stories. I reckon I’m pretty good at storytelling these days but he gave a masterclass and I was very grateful not to have to share a stage with him. The young boys thought he was cool and the young girls, well let’s just say he has an effect on anybody female. Even Kitty, our elderly book club member, has whispered “hubba hubba” to me about him with a...

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