GHOULIES and ghosties were among the terrifying things to look forward to when children’s writer Andrew Newbound visited pupils at Chickerell Primary School.

As well as hearing about Dorset ghosts from the writer, pupils from years five and six were invited to stand up and relate their own ghostly experiences to their classmates and teachers.

Andrew Newbound spent a couple of hours at the school talking about his new book, Demon Strike, reading extracts from it and also making the children laugh with jokes.

He talked to them about myths, legends and ghost stories coming from South Dorset and encouraged the youngsters to talk about things they had seen and heard.

“It was really nice to see the children willing to stand up and speak in front of 90 people and talk about their own ghost stories,” said school librarian and Year Three teaching assistant Natalie Carter.

“It is a pretty daunting thing for adults to do, let alone children, and they all did really well.”

“The funny thing at first was that the children had trouble understanding what he was saying because he has a Yorkshire accent and they weren’t used to it,” said Natalie. “He played up to it, but they soon got used to it.

“After the readings and jokes it all got a bit raucous because he divided the years into four teams – Year Five boys and girls and the same with Year Six – and they played a game where they had to find the most words that rhymed with ‘red’ and ‘blue’.

“The boys won, and we were pleased about that because we are currently trying to raise the level of the boys’ reading skills and this was a great way of encouraging them.”