I’ve been faking it again – this time treasure maps! In the process I discovered that although pencils have been around for 4-500 years, coloured pencils are a 20th century invention. Pencil production is centred in the UK in Keswick because there was a big supply of graphite there and although we call the bit in the middle of a pencil “lead”, the real content is graphite. Until quite recently it was possible to get lead poisoning from a pencil not because of its innards, but because of the paint on the outside! (Not any more though.)

Think about that for a moment – until recently, the main tool every child uses in the classroom was capable of poisoning them…because most seem to chew pencils. Shocking isn’t it? Mind you, I’m sure that as we remove one known toxin from classrooms, another substance that we routinely use is found to be toxic.

23 days to go…maybe then you'll get a half-decent photo from me.