Rooting about in the loft of a house that you have lived in for ages can be a dangerous activity. Especially if there are no loft boards! But recently I stumbled across a paper file in a pile of my sister’s old belongings that we have had stored up there for years for her.

In it, I discovered what I believe to be the only surviving printed copy of Clerb, a short book I wrote some 27 years ago now. I created the character of Clerb especially for my sister one summer just to while away the hours while I was supposed to be doing some very exciting computer programming work. Anyhow, I dusted off the pages, set about scanning them in one by one and here is the final, finished result... exactly as it was written back then. Well almost exactly - to be honest I have corrected a few spellings and typographical errors - but the story stands unadulterated. (A really good choice of word, as I have not tried to "adult" up the story choices made by my younger self.)

So now that self-publishing is just a little bit easier than way back then when I first wrote it and sent it off to a traditional publisher only to be disappointed, I thought it might be fun to finally share it with the world. Clearly, I was influenced by two huge gods of "funtastical" literature - Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett - and I would never claim to be in the same league, but since some of the jokes created by my younger self still made me chuckle nearly three decades later, it would be a shame not to spread the love and the laughter. Enjoy!