Group Editor Andrew Palmer chats with Jonathan Humble who tells him about how the Dirigible Balloon promotes the wealth of writing talent and the importance of poetry in fostering children’s appreciation of creative language as well as supporting their emotional, spiritual and cognitive development.

“Poetry is the thing that floats my boat,” Jonathan Humble shares with me as we sit down to chat about p.ublished’s second anthology of children’s poetry Sky Surfing.

“I suppose it’s the sort of condensed language—the idea of conveying a feeling and emotion, information even, in as few words as possible—that does it.”

It serves as Humble's raison d’être, providing him with a robust sense of self-worth. The amicable poet tells me, “It's something that makes me feel like I'm doing what I should be doing.”

“It is the time when I’m in an environment where it feels absolutely right.”

Humble likens it to his days when he would run across the Cumbrian countryside, making him feel better about himself.

As a runner myself, I understand what he means. The alpha brain wave patterns you produce while running may be to blame. “You know, Andrew, it's that rhythmic feeling with breathing and the endorphins your body produces, or the oxygen you are taking in; it all adds up to making me feel really relaxed and happy.

“It’s the same process of writing and producing a poem and improving it over days, weeks, or months that engenders a similar feeling.”

... it inspired me to start dabbling in and drafting out what might loosely be called poems...

As we chat, it becomes clear that there was something deep inside Humble that was beginning to stir his passion for poetry from an early age.

As a young man he worked picking lettuces and working in a corrugated card factory as summer part-time work, scrabbling around trying to work out what he wanted to do.

“When I was 18, there was a series on the television about William Shakespeare. I was quite young and impressionable, and it inspired me to start dabbling in and drafting out what might loosely be called poems, and I've done that all the way through and written short stories.”

However, it was common in the 1970s and 1980s for young men to pursue their fathers' careers. Humble began his career in the power industry with CEGB prior to its privatisation. Although he admits he felt like a square peg in a round hole.

“My dad worked in the power industry, so it seemed like a good thing to do, and although I could pass exams and appear to be doing quite well, I knew deep down it was the wrong thing to do.”

It all came to a head after he qualified as an engineer in 1984, working at Drax Power Station, when he said to himself, "If I'm going to do anything different, now is the time to do it.”

Having heard about Charlotte Mason College in Ambleside in the Lake District, and having never visited the national park, he decided to take a look.

"To be honest, it was quite a cultural shock," he says. "At the time, I was living in Goole, which is known for its flat terrain; witnessing the hills surrounding Ambleside was truly enlightening."

I suppose it’s the sort of condensed language—the idea of conveying a feeling and emotion, information even, in as few words as possible...

Meeting Will Nesbitt, the head of English, was a positive experience. He made Humble feel so welcome that he immediately thought he’d give it a go. “I packed up engineering and retrained as a teacher, and I haven't really left Cumbria since.”

It was certainly the right decision for Humble, as he clocked up 36 years in primary education, 23 of which were as a deputy head.

And although he taught everything, one of the areas he particularly enjoyed was getting children to explore their ideas and feelings through the lens of poetry, and since leaving teaching in 2020, he has worked for Wordsworth Grasmere, going into schools to take poetry workshops with other kids from Cumbria.

“I taught everything, but poetry was the one thing that I would look forward to most.”

When I tell him about a poem I got commended for at school, an experience that encouraged me to start writing, Humble recalls a story about the Poet Laureate Simon Armitage.

“Simon talks about how when he was at school, his teacher asked the class to produce a poem, and the best half a dozen would get put up on the wall. “According to him, he wasn't chosen, which he wonders if it was the impetus for his pursuit of poetry as a way of getting back at the teacher.”

As someone who writes for children and wants to foster an appreciation for poetry, Humble has always been careful to give young people positive feelings about the work they have produced, adding, "Not that the work could be improved (although I would attempt to help them do that), not to approach it from some SPAG (spelling, punctuation, and grammar) perspective, but for the sheer love of wanting to get something down on paper that would convey thoughts and feelings."

I do find sharing with other people is beneficial, and I am not afraid to change, to edit, and not to expect it to be perfect immediately, although sometimes you could fall lucky and what you write needs little alteration, but that’s very rare for me anyway.

Poetry, according to Humble, is an ongoing process, and he will edit even if a poem has been published, inspired by the words of Paul Valéry: 'A poem is never finished, only abandoned. No work of art is ever perfect.'

“I have hundreds of draft copies, little notebooks, and scribbles where I have rearranged words. I have a lot of poems that I have gone back to.”

In the early days, Humble wrote a lot of iambic rhyming poetry; often it was light stuff. “I used to put aside Sunday mornings to write all iambically rhyming. It wasn’t until around 2011/2012 that I got more into free verse and slightly more serious stuff. Not abandoning the light-hearted poetry. That is my focus for children, but anything I write for myself is usually not structured, although there is rhythm in there—there would be certain lines and certain parts of poems that would perhaps have some rhythmical cadence and rhythmical feel to it but not necessarily following a rhyming scheme.”

Redrafting is something that Humble is passionate about, telling me that no one should be afraid to edit and redraft and change.

“I get quite a kick from sharing my work. I often go to a regular poetry reading session at the brewery in Kendal, Verbalise. There's a very supportive group who share their work, and though it’s not for everybody, I do find sharing with other people is beneficial, and I am not afraid to change, to edit, and not to expect it to be perfect immediately, although sometimes you could fall lucky and what you write needs little alteration, but that’s very rare for me anyway.”

Something else that Humble enjoys is the performance side, and he admits to being a big show-off. It stems from his school days. When he was about 15, he took the school lead in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. But as is so often the case, he was in the school rugby team, and “singing in front of my teammates was interesting.”

We're getting on for 2000 poems from about 500 poets globally, and I am indebted to the generosity of all those involved

It didn’t deter him because later he took on roles at the Gilbert and Sullivan Society in Cumbria as Ralph Rackstraw in HMS Pinafore and Nanki-Poo in The Mikado.

“Teaching is a performance in lots of ways; standing in front of children or even at parents evenings or assemblies.

“Standing up and reading poetry is a joy. I love it.

In 2020, after he retired and was “walking the legs off our dog and decorating the house inside and out, which was about the first six to eight months", he says there was something missing. “I had not factored into retirement missing people on a day-to-day basis.”

He needed something else to do, something fulfilling and people-based. Fortuitously, he had started writing book reviews for the p.ublished group, which at the time only had the Yorkshire Times in its stable.

This led to a meeting with our literary editor, Steve Whitaker, and our managing editor, Richard Trinder, who both encouraged Humble to launch our poetry platform, Dirigible Balloon (DB), a publication featuring an abundance of children's poems.

“We’ve just celebrated our third anniversary, and it has grown and grown. We're getting on for 2000 poems from about 500 poets globally, and I am indebted to the generosity of all those involved.”

“One of the poets who regularly sends me his poems commented that we have so much material that we should produce an anthology.

“The idea was to share the poets’ work and for the DB to raise a little bit of money for various charities.” The first anthology, Chasing Clouds, raised money for the National Literacy Trust, and the second, Sky Surfing, as well as showcasing people's work, is raising the profile of Juvenile Arthritis Research.

What is impressive is that there are 22 illustrators. Previously, Humble’s daughter, Emily, did all the illustrations, but “she's a very busy person these days, so we thought we would throw it open to other illustrators.”

The response has been phenomenal, according to Humble, and thanks to the generosity of poet and illustrator Colin West, who provided funding.

“Through Colin’s contacts, we contacted the philanthropic illustrator Chris Riddell, who said yes. That was just brilliant. We were over the moon.

"It's fantastic that our 66 poets, including Michael Rosen, Philip Ardagh, Carole Bromley, and Brian Moses, as well as new writers, create a lovely mix and range of talent."

As I leaf through the pages of this beautifully produced book, Humble points out that he likes the poems to be as light as possible, but there are a few that are thought-provoking and emotive, such as Rhiannon Oliver’s Leaving, illustrated by Chris Riddell, all about a child and a family leaving a home to move elsewhere.

“It's a wonderful poem. It stops to make you think, and there are others there that do the same, and there are others that are more light-hearted; there's a chap called John Dredge, a brilliant writer and performer, who’s just got into children's poetry. His contribution is My Silly Friend, with illustrations by Fred Blunt," and Humble can’t resist reading out.

As a former deputy head, Humble believes that poetry and other creative subjects like art and music must be brought to the forefront of the curriculum again. "We need to invest more money in these subjects, as I believe they have suffered over the past 25 years. In my opinion, abolish SATs. I'd say abolish Ofsted as well, to be honest. The idea of league tables is not beneficial for children's education.

It’s a bit of a soapbox for him. Having taught Year 5 and 6 pupils, he saw how SATs and the Ofsted mill impinged on children's education in a way that results in a narrowing of the curriculum.

We need to invest more money in these subjects, as I believe they have suffered over the past 25 years. In my opinion, abolish SATs

.Everything is data led, and Humble believes the comparing of schools as a result of narrow tests, and the pressure that is felt by schools, head teachers, and teaching staff skews the curriculum and the creative aspects of the curriculum text to get pushed to the side.

“At my school we tried incredibly hard to stop that from happening. As a school, you have a mission statement, a set of aims, and an ethos. Ours focused very much on practical, worthwhile, planned activities for children that would broaden their horizons. Of course, it includes all the curriculum areas that they should be learning, but with the creative ones, we would go out on visits, get people in to do talks, etc.”

He continues to promote this philosophy, hoping to inspire others to float a boat of poetry.

Sky Surfing is available through the Dirigible Balloon website (https://dirigibleballoon.org).