The Story MY Children like more than The Good Knight.

By Chris Livemore

My biggest critics for The Good Knight books have always been my two eldest children - a highly critical 5-year old and the 'laughter-in-chief' advisor in the form of my 2 1/2 year old. So after endless editing, countless rewrites and medieval silliness I was absolutely thrilled that for months all they wanted to hear before bedtime were the adventures of a brave little knight, a lovable dragon and a fearless princess.

Surely this was going to be enough to keep bedtime happily occupied for years...

My children would rather hear about the time I broke my leg. Not as a one off, but every single night for the past 4 and a half weeks.

"Daddy..."

"...the leg story."

Poor Jack has been completely usurped by an unfortunate rugby tackle from the early 2000s. This has hugely bruised my ego as a children's picture book author in waiting.

Apparently reality beats dragons

The story starts when I was eighteen and playing rugby. It ends with a broken tibia, a broken fibula, a dislocated ankle, surgery, a wheelchair and enough comedy and gore to convince my children this is the greatest story ever told.

The first laugh comes almost immediately.

The hospital looked at my leg and initially diagnosed it as a sprain. At this point both my children burst into laughter before I even finish the sentence. It isn't even funny. But that doesn't stop them laughing at this point.

They laugh because the next day I was called by the hospital to say there had been a minor mishap and actually my injury was "the worst leg break they have ever seen from a rugby game." I had a rough idea that this was the case as my ankle was lodged halfway up my shin, which isn't the best place for an ankle to be.

Turns out I should have been a doctor with that diagnosis!

Then comes The Door Bit

Every story has a favourite chapter. Mine is apparently called The Door Bit.

Unable to walk, I was pushed through hospital in a wheelchair by my dad. The small problem was that my broken leg was sticking straight out in front of me. The even smaller problem was that my dad hadn't quite appreciated how close the footrest was to the doors, or maybe he had.

BONK. First doorway.

BONK. Second doorway.

BONK. Third doorway.

By doorway number four my children are laughing too hard to breathe. Let's just say there were a lot more doors at the hospital than four.

I spent months trying to develop comic timing for The Good Knight, but my dad accidentally invented better slapstick in under thirty seconds. But my favourite part of this part of the story is that both children now say to their grandad "You are very, very silly" and he has no idea that this is the reason why.

The wrong leg

Then came surgery. Someone carefully marked the leg that needed operating on.

It was the wrong one.

Neither child has an understanding of hospital procedures. They do, however, understand injustice.

"They did the WRONG leg?!"

"They did."

"That's really bad."

"It certainly wasn't ideal."

They nod in agreement every time. They then suggest I go to a different hospital for the operation. I did. Then there are parts of the story explaining the difference between local and general anesthetic, which they like to know. There is a lot of medical detail in this bedtime story.

The infinite story

Finally comes the cast. Anyone who's worn one knows about the itching. The itch is always exactly where you can't reach it.

So naturally I started posting things down the cast. A ruler. A pen. Various other increasingly ridiculous objects, which would become stuck and lost in the ether of the cast. They like to work out what else fell down the cast - apparently cats, some HotWheels (or other generic brand of toy car), a chair and some fire ants had to be rescued at some stage.

The story has become infinitely expandable. Which, if you're trying to compete with it as a children's author, is a serious design flaw. And I get in serious trouble if I do not remember the exact list of items that ended up in the cast - there are approximately 2, 363 items now.

The lesson I wasn't expecting

At first I wondered why this story had beaten The Good Knight books in terms of popularity and their attention. I wont lie, I was a little bit gutted.

Then I realised it wasn't because it was better. It was because it was ours.

My children know me. They know this actually happened. They know grandad really did crash my leg into four hospital doors and he is "very, very silly." They know somebody genuinely marked the wrong leg. Those specific details make the story feel real in a way that nothing invented quite can.

Children love dragons. They love knights, princesses and adventures. But what they really love is something emotionally true hiding underneath the story. A feeling they recognise. A character who is afraid and goes anyway. Someone kind when it would be easier not to be.

Jack is fictional but his courage isn't. Fire Pud is fictional, but his loyalty is completely real. Princess Charlotte is fictional, but is completely fearless and tackles problems head on. Children can tell when something is true underneath. Not consciously, but in the way they come back to the same story night after night, waiting for the same moment, making the same sound effect at the fourth door.

Jack will reclaim bedtime eventually, I may need to ensure he breaks his leg at some point to achieve that (sorry Jack). Until then he'll simply have to wait behind an incompetent hospital diagnosis, a spectacular series of wheelchair collisions and a steadily growing collection of household objects trapped forever in a plaster cast.

He's a patient knight. He'll be fine. On the other hand, I may not - my children know that I have broken over 30 bones, so there are going to be quite a few follow on stories from the broken leg story!

Join the Shield Wall at thegoodknightbook.com/shield-wall — for dad stories, medieval history, picture book updates and the occasional object lost irretrievably in a cast.