Today (saturday 25th) I was working at the Wessex Children's Book Fair, held in the Guildhall in Winchester, England. There were loads of stalls with looooooads of kiddies' books; there were also several guest authors and illustrators here for our delight.
Even with me and my tiny amount of work experience, I have to say this was the BEST day of work I've ever had, and I got £50 for it!!! Now I know what it's like to walk around in one of those big furry character costumes for half an hour (I was Maisy the mouse!! all the kids were glomping me...and I couldn't see a damn thing!!) and my sketchbook is now worth quadruple its original value as it now bears Terry Pratchett's, Michael Morpurgo's, and Korky Paul's signatures on its inside covers.
But even so I do have a few things to report. Surprisingly the kids didn't make too much of a problem; the most we had were the whiners-to-their-mothers.
I have a SC-I-Q (sucky customer-in-queue) and a highly disillusioned SC (sucky celebrity)
1. Korky Paul is an illustrator - if you've seen the Winnie the Witch series, he does all those drawings. My sketchbook is used by me to draw in, and it was the only thing I had for people to sign. Since I was a member of staff today I could bypass the ticket system and get straight in the queue. Mr. Paul was fascinated by my drawings (*hides in T-shirt*) and told me of a computer-colouring system he uses and gave me the website to download it!! As well as that he was doing little drawings on everything he signed (I have a green dinosaur/dragon thing now!!).
Now this was taking time, but this was literally at 4PM, when the place closed. The ticket system had long been abandoned, seeing that most people had left. Well, this chavvy little 10-yr-old got into line behind me, and she kept talking really loudly and prodding me when -Korky- was talking to -me-; as if that would hurry -him- up!!!!
Hobag.
2. Okay, I'm sorry if anyone if a fan of hers, but I must say this in case this happens often and/or someone's planning to get something signed. Jacqueline Wilson was another author here. Initially she was another signature I wanted. THEN I found out the people with her organising her queue would not let staff bypass the ticket system, even though we had been told to leave the tickets for patrons and slip in later - and they refused anyone who had something for her to sign that was anything other than a new, fair-bought, hardback £7.99 book of hers. Only that would get through.
What?!?!?!?

But even so I do have a few things to report. Surprisingly the kids didn't make too much of a problem; the most we had were the whiners-to-their-mothers.

1. Korky Paul is an illustrator - if you've seen the Winnie the Witch series, he does all those drawings. My sketchbook is used by me to draw in, and it was the only thing I had for people to sign. Since I was a member of staff today I could bypass the ticket system and get straight in the queue. Mr. Paul was fascinated by my drawings (*hides in T-shirt*) and told me of a computer-colouring system he uses and gave me the website to download it!! As well as that he was doing little drawings on everything he signed (I have a green dinosaur/dragon thing now!!).
Now this was taking time, but this was literally at 4PM, when the place closed. The ticket system had long been abandoned, seeing that most people had left. Well, this chavvy little 10-yr-old got into line behind me, and she kept talking really loudly and prodding me when -Korky- was talking to -me-; as if that would hurry -him- up!!!!
Hobag.
2. Okay, I'm sorry if anyone if a fan of hers, but I must say this in case this happens often and/or someone's planning to get something signed. Jacqueline Wilson was another author here. Initially she was another signature I wanted. THEN I found out the people with her organising her queue would not let staff bypass the ticket system, even though we had been told to leave the tickets for patrons and slip in later - and they refused anyone who had something for her to sign that was anything other than a new, fair-bought, hardback £7.99 book of hers. Only that would get through.
What?!?!?!?

Comment