Hello, I'm Kirstie Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Disks from BBC Radio 4.

For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

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Radio 4. My car is My castaway this week is the writer Frank Kotrell Boys. His film credits include

Hillary and Jackie, Welcome to Sarajevo and 24-hour party people. According to one and He's also written TV soaps, radio and stage plays and children's novels, picking up

plaudits and awards along the way.

Of the range of his work, he says, I sometimes think it's because I haven't found out what

I'm good at. These days, it's children who haven't found out what I'm good at.

These days, it's children who are his main audience,

and he should know what they want.

A father of seven himself, he has a large and willing brute to test his tails on. Of his work for young readers he says

it's amazing how much impact you can have, not just an emotional impact, but you can light someone up,

you can change someone in a moment.

There was a moment I think Frank Kotru Boyce when you felt that you were destined to become a writer.

You were 11. Tell me about it.

Yeah, I was in Tis de Pause class in St Bartholomew's school in Rain Hill and I had a really good friend all the way through school and he was off sick. His name was Graham and I kind of poured all the energy that I used to

pour into making him laugh during lessons into this piece of work and at the end of

the lesson sister Paul collects all the pieces of work in and she picked up mine

and she looked at it and she looked at me and wondered where it had come from.

She looked at me as though I'd laid an egg and she went to the front of the class and she read it out. I've always thought that if she'd said

Frank you come and read it out I would have grown up wanting to be a comedian or an actor

or a performer of some sort but there's something really delicious about not being in the limelight

...