A sports broadcaster and commentator delivered an inspirational speech to around 300 schoolchildren in Burton.
Clare Balding visited the Queen Street Community Centre, on Wednesday, October 4, to introduce her new children's book, The Racehorse Who Disappeared, to try to encourage more children to get involved with reading and writing.
"What a fantastic and well-behaved group of young people," Clare said, as she entered the room of beaming children.
"It's lovely to be here today. Now I just want to say the best thing about writing children's books is that it’s not all about the words, but the incredible pictures too!"
The 46-year-old signed copies of her new book, The Racehorse Who Disappeared, a follow-up to her previous book, The Racehorse Who Wouldn't Gallop.
She said she takes inspiration from her life to write the books, and credited the disappearance of the Irish Derby-winning racehorse Shergar, who she was fond of during her childhood, as the inspiration for her latest book.
Clare Balding is an award-winning broadcaster, known for sports presenting, mainly tennis, and is currently hosting shows for BBC Sport, Channel 4 and BT Sport and has previously presented the BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
The crowd of around 300 schoolchildren was made up of youngsters from a number of schools, including Victoria Community School, Victoria Road, Burton and nearby Anglesey Primary School.
The visit was organised by Burton Libraries, in conjunction with Authors Aloud UK and Gill Heath, libraries chief at Staffordshire County Council, who said she was delighted about the visit from the celebrity author.
She said: "We are delighted to welcome Clare to the county to talk to our schoolchildren. Encouraging young people's creative skills and their enthusiasm for reading and writing through our libraries is something we are passionate about and author visits are a great way to do this.
"Clare is a speaker with lots of great motivational stories. She'll be a great role model for the children and I'm sure she'll encourage more children to visit their local library and to get into reading for pleasure."
Clare tried to inspire the room of children to write their own stories, and throughout the hour-long talk invited small groups to come to the front to help her illustrate her many stories.
Clare and one youngster role-played as the British triathlete stars, and brothers, Alistair and Jonny Brownlee. She was telling the story of how, at the 2016 World Triathlon series in Mexico, Alistair Brownlee sacrificed the chance to finish second in the race to help his brother, who collapsed just 200 metres short of the finish, get across the line.
During her talk Clare drew on her experiences in presenting sports, making reference to meetings with Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, paralympian Ellie Simmonds and British boxer Nicola Adams.
At the end of the event, Clare handpicked five youngsters to come to the front and pitch to her their wacky and wonderful ideas for books, made up completely on the spot.
From a cat called Biscuit who is a ninja and fights crime, to Benjy the dog who can leap into TV screens and become part of a show or advert, there were certainly some interesting and creative suggestions.
Bernard Peters, who represents Horninglow and Stretton on Staffordshire County Council, who backs the national initiative to get children reading, was at the event and was impressed with Clare's talk.
He said: "Listening to Clare talking to the excited children about pets, horses and many other animal stories with so much passion was very much appreciated by the children.
"She told the children that stories and pictures are so important to learn and spark their imagination; the children talked about their ideas and it was so nice to hear about their life experiences."
