At the ripe old age of...

well, let's just say I remember a very different childhood.

We were the generation that had to entertain ourselves.

If you were lucky, you had a Barbie and Ken. If you were really lucky, they came with a car, a dream house and maybe even a swimming pool. If you didn't, it didn't matter. We simply made the stories up ourselves. A cardboard box became a mansion. A blanket became a castle. Our imaginations did the rest.

Books were treasure troves filled with adventure, mystery and faraway places where you could disappear for hours.

We rode our bikes with playing cards clipped to the spokes, making that wonderful ppffrrrttt sound as we raced along the streets. We built tree houses, paddled in rivers, explored fields, spent hours in swimming pools playing Marco Polo, and lay in the sunshine trying to get a better tan than everyone else. (Looking back, some of the things we used were probably not the wisest choices!)

Those really were the days.

And you know what? We're still here. We're still alive, still dreaming, and our imaginations are as healthy as ever.

One of my greatest loves was Enid Blyton's The Magic Faraway Tree. Moon-Face, Silky, Dame Washalot, Mr Watzisname and the magical lands at the top of the tree became as real to me as my own neighbourhood.

Years later, I found a copy in a charity shop because I wanted to experience that magic again as an adult.

What amazed me wasn't what was on the page.

It was what wasn't.

There were only a handful of illustrations. The incredible colours, the twisting branches, the strange lands, the magical characters and every tiny detail I remembered had been created almost entirely inside my own head.

That realisation absolutely blew me away.

The author had simply given me the words.

My imagination had painted the rest.

So when The Magic Faraway Tree was finally brought to the big screen, I couldn't wait to see it. Like so many readers, though, it never quite matched the version I'd carried around in my imagination for decades.

And perhaps that's the point.

No film can ever compete with the world we build for ourselves.

Today we're living through another extraordinary age. Artificial intelligence can create breathtaking artwork, magical scenes and incredible worlds in seconds. As someone who uses AI as part of my creative process, I find it fascinating and genuinely exciting.

But I always remind myself of one thing.

Every wonderful creation starts with an idea.

A human imagination.

Every artist, every author, every illustrator, every inventor who came before us laid the foundations for what we have today. AI is an incredible tool, but the spark still begins with people, with curiosity, creativity and the ability to imagine something that doesn't yet exist.

I feel incredibly fortunate to have grown up in the 1970s and to have witnessed every technological leap since then. From handwritten letters to smartphones, from library books to AI-generated artwork, it has been an amazing journey.

Children today have the world at their fingertips. They can learn almost anything with the touch of a button.

I just hope that, alongside all that technology, they never lose the greatest gift of all...

...the ability to close a book, look into the distance, and let their own imagination take over.

Because that's where the real magic begins.