A Life in Stories
Guest Post from Jon
Exploring Life through the Written Word
Dear friends,
I don’t recall exactly when I discovered
’s publication, Animated. However, I had been subscribed for several months before discovering that he was married to , the author of another wonderful publication I was also subscribed to.Jon lives in Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England where he is a primary school teacher. In addition to his day job he also teaches Wing Chun twice a week. He shares his life with Kate, his wife and writer of A Narrative of Their Own. They have two children, Eleanor, who is a freelancer here in Sheffield and Hol, who is currently doing their A levels.
Please enjoy this wonderful guest essay from my friend, Jon.
It’s a curious thing to be asked to write about yourself, especially when the question is framed around your relationship with literature. On the surface, that feels like a comfortable topic. I’ve always read, but when I really began to think about it and how my life has intertwined with stories and how literature has shaped the person I am now, I realised the connection runs deeper than I’d ever really considered.
I suppose I’ve always seen stories as movement. That may sound strange, but for me, a book is never static. It’s alive with energy and possibility. I grew up reading Roald Dahl, as so many of us did, and it felt like every page was fizzing with the sort of mischief and magic that dared you to read just one more chapter. I was a massive fan of Danny Champion of the World and remember being unable to put it down and being told off for reading at meal times. Reading that book now to my school class of 8 and 9-year-olds takes me back to when I first read it, but also I see in their eyes the enjoyment that it gives to a new generation, bringing me back to the energy of a book.
That’s why I’ve always found such joy in sharing books with children in the classroom. Although I am not a fan of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, I have read it with every class I've had, and to my surprise, they’ve all loved it.
Reading with my own two children (now too old to hear me read at 25 and 18), I loved every picture book, from There’s a Shark in the Park (which is now read in my class) to devouring all the Harry Potters together. I think my favourite books that I read with them would have to be the Fudge books by Judy Blume. Although outdated when we read them, the stories really stand the test of time. Bonjour, Stupid!
As our children have grown, they have developed their own tastes in reading and often share their books, which I read too, like A Kind of Spark by Elle McNicoll, to our eldest buying me a copy of Our Man in Havana. We even share The Daily Stoic and message each other every day about our thoughts.
Teaching, for me, came later in life. I was 42 when I retrained, after a career that took me through corporate and creative careers. But walking into a classroom, I found something I hadn’t experienced anywhere else: the chance to make a genuine, lasting difference. It’s not always easy. We all have our own hard days, and teaching is not a job you can do halfway. Children can always tell if your heart’s not in it.
The rewards of reading are just extraordinary. When a former pupil finds you years later and says, “Do you remember when we read… and you did those silly voices” or “Have you got a copy of that book, I can’t remember what it’s called but it goes like…”
I bring all parts of myself into the classroom. One of those parts is sports — a massive part of my life. I play squash, have recently started going to the gym, and have recently become an instructor in Wing Chun, which I have been doing for the last almost eleven years. Again, books have influenced me. I read all the archetypal Bruce Lee books, but then I went deeper into understanding body mechanics and Chu Shong Tin Volumes I and II.
The principles of the art form have quietly influenced the way I teach, the way I parent, and the way I read. Something about learning to redirect energy rather than resist it, about choosing precision over force, seems to have bled into everything I do.
All this sport means I play football, frisbee, handball, and bench ball with the children in school, and we try to find books that will engage them in the sports, books like Mental Toughness for Young Athletes. It’s not just about staying active, although that’s certainly important; it’s about building relationships, helping children discover what their bodies can do, what teamwork feels like, and how sports can create joy and help them become more confident.
Many children at our school don’t always have access to sports outside of school, so I’ve made it a mission to bring in different opportunities, especially around Sports Day, which we now do at the English Institute for Sport. I also work with university partners to open children’s eyes to things they might never have considered, such as ultimate frisbee, hockey, rowing, and cheerleading.
Recently, I have started always taking a book everywhere with me. At the moment, it’s The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie. I know that if I am waiting for any reason, my default is no longer my phone but the pages of a book.
Books remain one of my oldest companions. While my reading life has evolved, I have never lost that sense of childhood discovery. I’ve long been captivated by the Golden Age of detective fiction. There’s something deeply satisfying about the tight structure and puzzle-solving, but also the wit and character that writers like Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and John Dickson Carr brought to their work.
Carr has especially fascinated me lately with the locked-room mysteries, the theatrical flair, and the brilliant (and sometimes eccentric) characters like Dr. Gideon Fell or Sir Henry Merrivale, who feel like old friends. These stories aren’t just about solving crimes; they’re carefully crafted pieces of entertainment that still influence how we think about story structure today.
In the past, I have written my own novellas based in modern times and have loved the plotting and character development as you dive into what looks easy but is incredibly difficult to achieve.
And then there’s animation — another lifelong love. There’s something so rich and strange about the world of animated film: its elasticity, surreal logic, and the way it combines visual art, sound, movement, and story. From the experimental, often eerie animations of the 1920s, like Lotte Reiniger’s The Adventures of Prince Achmed or the Fleischer Brothers’ early Betty Boop cartoons, to the boundless creativity of work in the 2020s, I’ve always been drawn to the way animation makes the impossible real.
That’s what led me to start Animated, my Substack project. It began as a personal challenge: to research one piece of animation a week and write about it. I don’t follow a strict format but let my curiosity guide me. Some weeks, I dive deep into the history of a piece, looking at the cultural or musical context that shaped it. Other times, I’m more interested in how it influenced other artists or what quirky behind-the-scenes stories it holds.
Like many people, cartoons have influenced us, whether we like a certain animation over another or we’ve watched animation with family and friends and just shared the experience. My brother and I loved Spider-Man in the 1980s, along with Captain Scarlet. When I was a little older, my grandad was ill. He loved watching Road Runner and Chip ‘n’ Dale, which we must have watched repeatedly, but they never lost their spark.
There’s no grand plan for Animated; it's just a desire to keep exploring and share that exploration with others. That same impulse to stay curious, to dig deeper, and to enjoy the strange and beautiful is what binds all these parts of my life together, a little like my reading world.
There is just a reading thread running through my life. Whether it’s reading, teaching, martial arts, sports, or animation, I’m drawn to the things that move. The things that challenge, that inspire, that connect. I want children to feel that excitement of finding a story that speaks to them, the thrill of solving a mystery, the pride in scoring a goal, or simply the wonder of seeing something animated that shouldn’t exist, but somehow does.
We read a book every half term in class. Sometimes it’s a new title; sometimes it’s a classic. But always, I try to choose something that will surprise them. And yes, picture books still sneak in — deliberately. Because why should we ever stop enjoying stories told with clarity, colour, and heart?
Writing this, I realise I don’t have a single story about my relationship with reading. It’s been there in different forms at every stage of my life—sometimes loud and passionate, sometimes quiet and steady. It’s shaped how I see the world, connect with others, and find meaning in movement, discipline, and curiosity.
Literature, like everything else I value, invites us to take part. To imagine. To pay attention. To learn. And for me, at least, that’s where the magic is.
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Until next time,
 | A guest post by
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Thank you so much for letting me do this; it was so much fun.
Loved this interview, Matthew, and thanks for the mention! 😀