Read all about my adventures in the Forest of Dean!

'Granddad in the Forest' was supported by the National Lottery through the Big Lottery Fund. It enabled Granddad to visit schools in the Forest of Dean, a very special area where all kinds of exciting adventures take place.

Granddad's travels took him to Aylburton, Drybrook, Forest View, Littledean, Lydbrook, Newnham St Peters, Pillowell, Ruardean, Soudley, Severnbanks, Steam Mills and Yorkley Primary Schools. He had a wonderful time Here are some of his pictures and stories....

Alexandra the Super Rich, Ugly Witch

There was once a witch named Alexandra. She loved spiders and became known as the Witch of the Web. She lived in a small village in a magnificent palace made of diamonds and gold. Granddad had built the palace years ago for a king, but Alexandra had always wanted it badly. One day, she sent an army of spiders into the palace to scare the king away so she could move in to his marvelous home.

When she was in her palace Alexandra (who was very ugly, with a big wart on her big, green nose) dressed up in beautiful sparkly outfits and made potions to help her cast her spells. She would place her witches hat on top of the television when she was not wearing it.

Next door to Alexandra's palace there was an old falling down house that looked more like a shed. It had scratches on the walls, straw coming out of the chimney, cracks in the one tiny window and a huge hole in the roof. In this sorry little house there lived a six-year-old boy named Henry.

Alexandra wanted to make Henry her slave so one afternoon she invited Henry to her palace. She tricked him into thinking that she would give him some gold to fix his house, so Henry gladly went over to collect some riches. Unfortunately Henry did not realize that Alexandra was a witch and when he got to her palace, just as she was about to lock him in the cellar, Henry told Alexandra his favourite joke. "Why do witches always have big green noses?" asked Henry, but before he could finish his joke, Alexandra got so angry that she cast a spell to turn Henry into a gingerbread man for her supper. However, Alexandra had a small, wooden splinter in her spell-casting finger and it made the spell go slightly wrong. Henry did turn into a gingerbread man but he was a gingerbread man made of wood!

Realising that she couldn't eat him, Alexandra threw Henry out of the window in a tantrum and he landed in a pot of paint that Granddad was using to paint a fence. Granddad pulled him out and took him on his next adventure in the hope that he would be able to find someone who could reverse the spell. 

The Magic Bee-Keeping Dragon

Two elderly brothers lived in a cottage by the sea. One brother was very grumpy, while the other was very jolly. One morning, the grumpy brother was in town buying some bread and he pushed into the queue at the baker's. Little did he know that he had pushed in front of a witch and in her anger the witch cast a spell on the loaf of bread that the grumpy brother took away. When the two brothers sat down for tea and toast later that day, both became rather sick after their meal and had to go to bed. When they woke up they found their house destroyed beneath them for they had both turned into huge dragons thanks to the witches spell.

The grumpy brother was very upset and flew away in a rage. He would become a nasty dragon who would steal magic necklaces from mermaids and treasure from kings, storing it all in his secret lair. The jolly brother did not really mind so much being a dragon. He found a large cave in the cliffs near the sea and settled into his new life nicely. For a hobby, the jolly dragon decided that he would like to keep bees and he built a hive in his cave and invited some extra large, magic bees to live their and make their honey. The bees were delighted, because the flowers that they collected pollen from were found at the bottom of the ocean and living in a hive so close to the sea was very handy.

Every day the bees as big as tennis balls would dive to the bottom of the ocean and find the enormous flowers that they desired. Back in the hive the busy bees would make their extra special honey. The honey was magic because it had the power to reverse spells cast by witches and wizards. The honey could also talk by sending words out in bubbles if you heated it gently on a stove.

The bees once offered to give some honey to the dragon so he could turn back into a man. After a little thought, the dragon decided that he preferred being a dragon and was happy enough as he was.

Granddad discovered the dragon's cave on an adventure and the dragon gave him some of the magic honey so he could reverse the spell cast upon Henry, the six-year-old boy who had been turned into a gingerbread man. Henry was delighted and Granddad always keeps a supply of the honey on him, just in case.

The Not So Ginger Gingerbread Man

There was once a pixie named Gazelle who lived in a big castle as an assistant to his friend Wizardy the wizard. Wizardy was due a holiday and left one morning to spend two weeks at the seaside. He left Gazelle in charge of the castle and set off for the beach looking forward to his favourite past time of riding the donkeys up and down the promenade. Gazelle was very excited to be able to do what he liked for two whole weeks and immediately set about making a delicious Gingerbread man for Granddad's one-hundredth birthday.

When Wizardy got to the beach he put on his sandals and jumped on the back of a grey donkey, riding around the sand waving both his arms in the air in glee. But while he was riding, in his excitement, Wizardy did not realize that his magic spell book dropped out of his pocket and buried itself in the sand. Gazelle meanwhile was making a huge mess in the kitchen back at the castle as he set about his baking.

When Wizardy reached for his spell book later on and found his pocket to be empty he was so annoyed and angry that he cut short his holiday and stormed back to the castle in a foul mood. When he got home all he wanted to do was have a cup of tea and go to bed. But finding the kitchen in such an awful state made him even angrier and he poured some magic potion on Gazelle's freshly baked Gingerbread man to turn it into wood. He demanded that Gazelle return the kitchen to a clean state and stomped off to bed.

Poor Gazelle could do nothing about the spell, so he cleaned up the kitchen and wrapped the gingerbread man in a bow. The next day he gave the wooden gingerbread man to Granddad for his birthday and apologized that he could not eat him due to his wooden predicament. Granddad was still pleased to receive his present and kept the wooden gingerbread man anyway in the hope that he would be able to find someone who could turn him back into his much tastier state.

The Witch's Magic Shield

A long time ago there lived a witch who dwelt in a dark cave. For years she had toiled on her work of making a magic shield out of the very hardest metal and rock. She scoured the land for precious materials and cast many spells on the shield to make sure that it was absolutely and utterly un-breakable. The witch intended to use the shield to protect her from dragons and wizards' spells and one day took it out to give it a try. She found a sleeping dragon and threw a rock at its nose. The dragon woke up in a rage and roared as it breathed a mighty flame at the mischievous witch. The witch hid behind the shield and the flames bounced right off of its gleaming surface. Very pleased, the witch then went and picked some prize roses from a wizard's garden. When the wizard saw her he zapped a spell out of his window to turn her into a frog, but the witch used her shield again and the spell bounced from its surface and hit the wizard's neighbour's cat!

The witch was delighted and she headed back to her cave with the shield tucked under her arm. Little did she know that a passing Roman Centurion had seen the shield protect her from the wizard's spell and desperately wanted the magic shield for himself. The Roman Centurion followed the witch home to her cave and hid in a bush until he could hear loud snoring coming from the cave. Safe in the knowledge that the witch was asleep, the Roman crept into the cave and carefully slid the shield from under the witch's bed while she snored away. But as he was leaving the cave, the Roman's heavy, metal armour clanged loudly and the witch awoke with a start.

The Roman Centurion made a run for it, but the witch grabbed her bow and arrow and chased after the soldier. She fired an arrow at him but the Centurion used the shield to protect himself. The tip of the arrow snapped clean off when it hit the magic shield and the arrow span off and went straight through Granddad's tent. The Roman dropped the shield and ran off, leaving the witch to snatch back her shield and hide it somewhere very safe. Granddad was left with a hole in his tent that he had to fix and an arrow that he still thinks might be a very straight snake!

The Bad Bear Bumblebee

In a cave, in a mountain, there once lived a very bad tempered bear. This bear would stamp around in his cave making as much noise as he could. He liked throwing rocks at passers by and stretching his claws at people to scare them away. The people who lived near the mountain eventually got fed up with the bear's bad behaviour and went to a wizard to ask for some help. The wizard came up with a cunning plan. He made some very special honey and turned himself into a bear so he could get a job in the Bear Shop near the bad tempered bear's cave. When the bad tempered bear came into the Bear Shop to buy himself some more honey, the wizard sold him the special jar that he had made.

The bad tempered bear went home and tucked into his new jar of honey but he only got halfway through it before he felt rather strange. The wizard had made the special honey with a potion that turned the bad tempered bear into a... large bumblebee!

At first the bear was furious. He flew around looking for someone to sting. But he soon realised that being a bee was not that bad after all, because he could make his very own honey to eat.

One day, the bumblebee bear found Tiddly in the forest looking for rare flowers. He flew around Tiddly's head until Tiddly followed him to the cave that he used to live in. Inside the cave Tiddly found the pot of half finished honey. He took it away to stop any more bears being turned into bees.

The Mysterious Egg

Upon returning to her cave one day a Swimmasaurus found a strange egg that certainly wasn't one of hers. Not knowing what to do with the tiny egg, she asked a passing shark if he would take it with him on his travels. The shark agreed and took the egg away. Wanting to learn more about what he should do with an egg, the shark found a book about Dinosaur eggs and read it from cover to cover. The shark soon realised that he would not be able to take proper care of the egg because he did not have any hands to hold it carefully. So, balancing the egg on his nose while he swam, the shark found a mermaid and asked her if she would look after the egg.

The mermaid agreed to take the egg and made a special silver box out of her scales to keep the egg in. The shark had also given her the book so she kept that in the box as well. Over time the egg got bigger and bigger until it no longer fitted inside the silver box. Luckily the mermaid spotted Tiddly swimming in the ocean nearby (he was looking for golden seaweed). So the mermaid asked Tiddly if he could take care of the egg and when he agreed she gave him the special silver box as a present to say thank you.

Tiddly took the egg away and read the book about how to care for it. He sat on it very carefully to keep it warm. After a very long while Tiddly felt the egg wriggling around. He plucked the egg from beneath his cushion and was amazed to see a tiny Pterodactyl hatch from inside. He realised that the egg must have been dropped into the sea by its mother and he went off to find her and return her baby.

The Great Gingerbread Man Disaster

Once there was a town full of Gingerbread men. They lived happily in the forest sitting around and not really doing very much. One of them however liked to run around and climb trees and to keep himself busy, he ended up building himself a little cottage on the top of a hill in the town.

One morning, the Gingerbread man woke up to the sound of crunching and munching outside his bedroom window. Getting up and looking down the hill, the Gingerbread man was horrified to see a little girl gobbling down as many Gingerbread men as she could find. The Gingerbread man recognized the little girl as Jessie, a six year old he had read about in books. Jessie was famous for eating record numbers of Gingerbread men and had once gobbled 25 in one sitting!

The Gingerbread man decided that he would run away before Jessie got hold of him too. But as he ran from his door a witch disguised as a Gingerbread man cast a spell that froze him on the spot. The witch planned to take him home and eat him but she had to run away when Jessie came after her, thinking she was a real Gingerbread man.

Granddad had been sleep walking in the woods at that time and he climbed the hill and tripped over the frozen Gingerbread man. Granddad woke up and took the Gingerbread man away with him in the hope that he would find somebody to unfreeze him.

The Wizard's Magic Washing Up Potion

There was once a lazy wizard. He would spend his time making potions and spells that would save him time and effort. For example, he made a potion that enabled his cat to feed itself and a spell to tidy his bedroom in a second. One day he made a special washing up potion with magic sparkles that created washing up water that would do the dishes for him.

A witch living in the village named Kaboom, heard about the wizard's magic washing up potion and decided that she wanted some too. So one night she went over to the wizard's house and froze the water in his sink so she could lift it out and take it home. But the witch rather foolishly left a calling card on the wizard's kitchen table with her name on it. So when the wizard saw it in the morning he went straight to Kaboom's house and dropped a special ingredient into the washing up water that was now in her sink. The special ingredient rubbed off onto the witches dishes and when she next had a cup of tea from a mug that had been washed in the magic water, she turned into a frog!

This was particularly unfortunate for her due to the fact that the Giant Frog Eating Monster was in town that week. When he saw a juicy frog wearing a witches hat he chased her off into the forest with his long tongue sticking out to lick his lips.

Because he hates washing up dishes, Granddad was given some of the magic washing up water by the wizard when he visited him. But the wizard froze the water and put it in a metal cup so it was easy for Granddad to carry.

The Bickering Wizard and Elf

There once was a wizard named Bob and an elf named Missalink who both wanted to build a castle in the same place in the forest. After a lot of arguing they both started building their own castle but Bob the wizard's castle was bigger than Missalink the elf's and Missalink ended up living in a hole in the wall on the side of Bob's castle. Missalink did not much like this arrangement so he thought up ways of getting on the Bob's nerves in the hope that the wizard would leave and he could have the castle to himself.

Missalink was a skilled toy maker, so he made a wonderful butterfly called Flutterby and gave it heavy metal wings and made a key to wind it up. He wound up Flutterby and sent him into the castle through a window. Flutterby's heavy metal wings made such a racket as they flapped and Bob got very annoyed by their constant clanging. Missalink was very pleased and waited for Bob to leave the castle but instead Bob waited for Flutterby to land and stamped on him with his heaviest boots. Flutterby broke into many pieces and Missalink collected them all up and started work again. This time he made a spider with metal legs called Henry. Missalink used some magic black bubbles from his workshop to make Henry move and wrapped him in black fur from his magic coat. When Henry was finished, Missalink posted him through the letterbox of the castle. Henry's metal legs made such a racket as he scampered about the castle floor and Bob got so angry that he froze Henry into a statue with a spell.

Missalink and Bob ended up talking to each other about their situation and thankfully came up with a plan to share the castle between them. Alan took Henry with him when he came to visit so he could look for someone who knew a spell to unfreeze the metal-legged spider.

The Foxes Who Went to China

There once were two foxes, a boy and a girl, who lived in the woods near a castle. Robin Hood lived in the same part of the woods and the two foxes liked nothing better than to watch Robin Hood cook his sausages on a fire for dinner. But just as the sausages were ready for Robin Hood to eat, the two foxes would jump out and steal them from under Robin Hood's nose. The foxes would laugh while they ate the sausages in their den.

The boy fox eventually asked the girl fox if she would marry him but she replied that she would only marry him if he took her to somewhere far away. So the boy fox agreed and the pair secretly jumped onto a plane that was heading to China. Little did they know that Robin Hood was also on the plane with his friend Alan, because he wanted a break from having his dinner stolen by foxes!

When they got to China the two foxes headed straight to the beach where they planned to get married. Robin Hood also headed for the beach for a long, relaxing walk. While he was strolling along he saw some baby seagull feathers lying on the sand. Robin thought how fine the feathers would look on the end of an arrow and found a long stick to attach them to. While Robin Hood searched the beach for a shell to use for an arrow tip, the two foxes spied him and jumped behind a wall to hide from his sight.

Robin could not find a sharp enough shell for the tip of his arrow so he gave the half made arrow to Alan to take home with him. The foxes waited until Robin Hood was gone and got married later that day. They decided to stay in China and lived there bringing up lots of babies. Robin Hood went home to the forest and finally enjoyed an uninterrupted sausage sandwich for his dinner.

The Vain Queen and Her Magic Wine

Queen Elizabeth Victoria was a very vain queen. She liked nothing better than to look at herself in her mirror. One morning however she noticed a tiny wrinkle in the corner of her eye and she became very upset at the thought of growing old. That night she visited the creepy graveyard in her kingdom and plucked a very special flower from the ground. The flower was the only one of its kind and Queen Elizabeth Victoria had been told that it had special powers that she could use to make a potion that would make her younger and keep her young forever. She took the flower home and mixed it with some red wine in a silver pot to make the potion. One of her servants saw what she was doing through the kitchen window and because he was very jealous of the queen he went straight to the newspaper to tell them about Elizabeth Victoria's plan. The paper printed a story that day on its front page and everyone soon heard about the potion that could keep you young.

All over the kingdom a great war broke out as everybody wanted to get hold of the magic wine. Queen Elizabeth Victoria watched horrified from the window of her castle tower. But as she watched the people fighting each other, an arrow flew through the window and hit the silver pot that she had poured the magic wine into. The arrow made a hole in the bottom of the pot and all of the wine poured out onto the floor before Elizabeth Victoria had a chance to drink any.

Because she was so upset about the trouble the magic drink had caused she gave the silver pot with a hole in the bottom to Elfred Guzzlebunk, so that he could take it away and she would never again have to see it and be reminded of the potion, the war and her silly vanity.

The Really Very Messy King

There was once a King who liked nothing more than making a mess. He made a mess of his castle and a mess of his clothes and a mess of his hair. When he got married, the queen hoped that he would change his ways and tidy himself up but he did not. In fact he got worse. The Queen became very upset when she realized that their son, the prince, was also very messy. The King and the Prince would spend all day making as much mess as they could. The King threw stones at his pictures and mirrors while the Prince threw all of his clothes around the castle, even his smelly socks. At dinner the King and the Prince would throw their food at each other. They would take rotten eggs from the bin and throw them at the walls and every one of the Queen's vases got smashed.

When she reached the end of her patience, fed up of cleaning the castle all the time, the Queen contacted a witch, who told her to bring a golden teapot and meet her in a secret garden. When they met, the witch poured a magic potion into the Queen's golden teapot and told her to give it to the King and the Prince to drink. Not knowing what would happen, the Queen gave the King and the Prince the magic tea that night. Once they had drunk all the tea, both the King and the Prince shrank to the size of peanuts. The Queen was delighted and she popped the King and the Prince into the golden teapot for safekeeping. Once she had tidied up the castle she became fed up with the noise of the King and the Prince arguing in the teapot, so she put the teapot into a basket and placed the basket into the River Severn so it would float away downstream.

Elfred Guzzlebunk happened to be on a fishing holiday not far away and one afternoon he caught the basket on the end of his line. He took the golden teapot out and heard the King and the Prince arguing, but when he lifted the lid to look inside he saw such a mess in the teapot that he has been very careful not to let them out since.

Clarabelle the Clumsy Witch

Clara bell was a very clumsy witch. She was always dropping things and bumping into things when she rode on her broom. One day she even dropped her magic wand while she was flying high up in the sky. The wand fell down to the ground and landed in a wizard's vegetable patch without Clarabelle even realizing. (Needless to say, the wizard was very pleased to get himself a witch's wand!)

When Clarabelle realized that she had lost her wand she got all in a tizz. She grabbed her small travel spell book and looked up what ingredients she would need to cast a new wand spell. She quickly realized that she was going to need to pop to the Secret Shop to pick up the ingredients so she stuffed the spell book in her pocket and hurried to the Secret Shop.

The Secret Shop is a special magic store that is disguised as a post box so only special people know that it is really the Secret Shop. Granddad needed some bits and pieces from the Secret Shop too and he was walking there that same day when a small spell book fell from the sky and hit him 'plonk' on the head. Looking up Granddad saw Clarabelle go whizzing by, not knowing that she had dropped her book. He put the book in his own pocket and promised to himself that he would give it back to Clarabelle when she next bumped into him, which was bound to happen sooner rather than later!

The Curious Case of the King's Missing Gold

There was once a king who built himself a golden palace on top of a tall hill. He filled his golden palace with golden things and jewels of all kinds. For birthdays, Christmas and anniversaries the king bought his wife, the queen, more gold and more jewels.

Word soon got out about how much gold the king had in his palace and it reached the ear of a particularly devious wizard. This wizard was looking for a large amount of gold to make a very special wand from and so far he had struggled to find any in the kingdom because the king had it all in his palace!

So, the wizard dug a deep hole in the hill beneath the palace and made himself a large cave in which to live. He took his inventing table down into the cave with him and made a wonderful lamp with two shining lights so he could see in the dark. At night, the wizard crept up to the castle and took some of the king's gold back down into his cave. This happened every night for a week and the king grew very anxious. To stop people from getting into his palace the king destroyed all the doors, blocking each and every doorway up with bricks. He dug a secret trap door entrance in the grass that only he and the queen knew about and thought he had done enough to keep out the burglar. But the wizard used his magic to go through the walls of the palace and steal more of the king's gold. The queen was so worried that she wore every single item of her jewelry to bed every night to keep it safe.

One night the wizard took a lot of gold and left his lantern in the king's bedroom by mistake. In the morning the king tripped over the lantern and broke it, stubbing his big toe on the handle.

The wizard had to make do with the gold he had already stolen, as he could no longer see at night and the king gave the broken lantern to Granddad at the end of their yearly meeting. The meeting takes place once a year to see what can be done about making the world a better place. This year the king and Granddad decided that there should be more pets for people and definitely more sunshine.

The Emerald Crab and the Golden Box

There was once a very special chest of treasure. Each of the precious jewels in the chest could magically change into small creatures. The rubies would turn into red spiders, the diamonds would turn into white moths and the emeralds would turn into small, green crabs.

One day the chest of treasure was being carried over the seas to a new home and one of the emeralds, Thomas was his name, decided that he wanted to see what life was like at sea. So Thomas changed into a small green crab and crept out of the chest to explore the ship. But while Thomas was scuttling about the decks, a large wave crashed into the side of the ship and Thomas flew into the air and fell into the sea. He eventually settled at the bottom of the ocean, sadly realising that he would have to live there forever more.

That is until one day Thomas looked up from the sea floor to see a large ship passing over his head far above. Using all his strength, Thomas the emerald crab swam all the way up to the bottom of the ship and climbed onto the deck. There, he saw a pirate with a hook for a hand holding a beautiful golden box up to the sun and laughing with a deep voice.

The box had six sides and each side had small windows in the shape of a flower. Thomas really missed his treasure chest and thought how much he would like to live in a box like the one he saw the pirate admiring. So, quietly, Thomas sneaked up to the pirate and climbed carefully up his leather boot. Thomas pinched the pirate's leg with his pincer and the pirate let out a surprised yell as he dropped the golden box over the side of the ship.

Thomas jumped into the sea after the golden box, following it all the way back down to the bottom of the ocean. Feeling very pleased with himself, Thomas made the golden box his new home and he liked nothing more then sitting in his home, looking out of the flower shaped windows at the passing fish and the purple seaweed in his garden.

The Witches Brew and the Thumb Sized People

There were once two witches who lived in a cave deep in the middle of a very tall mountain. They liked nothing better than eating frogs and cackling. The frogs who lived on the mountain were very scared of the witches and one day they all decided to go far away and find another mountain to live on, one with no witches hiding inside! When the witches realised there were no more frogs to eat they were hopping mad and they mixed up a very nasty potion in their cauldron. The witches were going to give to the potion to the friendly thumb sized people who lived at the bottom of the mountain. They would pretend that the potion was a lovely present, but really it would turn the thumb sized people into frogs so the witches could eat them!

Luckily a good fairy was looking into her magic mirror at the time. She saw the witches making their potion and hatching their plot. So the fairy rushed to the mountain and froze the nasty potion with her magic wand and gave the witches such a telling off that they ran away as fast as they could. The potion (that smelled of feet and rotten fish!) stayed frozen in the cauldron and the friendly thumb sized people got on with their happy lives in peace.

A report on the impact of the project on Forest of Dean schools is available by contacting pickled Image Theatre Ltd (see Contact Us link).