On Thursday this week we were delighted to welcome back Queen Elizabeth’s alumni, writer and poet Richard C Bower to present an assembly to our year 10 students.

Richard was here to promote his new book ‘Post Modern’, a collection of poems, and spoke about his experiences of being a student at QEA and his path to becoming an author. It was his English teacher at the time, Mr Pointon, who recognised promise in Richard’s writing, but it was only when penning a journal following a family bereavement that his career in writing really took off.

He says: “My therapist at the time saw some of the pieces I had written and encouraged me to show other people. I first showed my family and from there it snowballed, from performing my poetry on stage at festivals to signing a publishing deal and even appearing on the BBC. Not bad for a young lad from the Ladybrook estate!”

Richard’s advice to our students was that you can be anything in this life, if you aspire to be something and work hard towards it. He recited one of the poems from his book entitled ‘The Avenue’ which was about finding your way in life – an important message to all.

He has donated a copy of his book to our library here at the academy and this will be used in our shared reading sessions over the coming weeks.

Thank you to Richard for his time, his kind donation, and proving that you can achieve anything with hard work, desire and talent.