My fascination with Stephen King started with a paper boat. The boat bobbed and weaved its way along a tiny stream created by the day’s rampant rain fall. Little Georgie, whose boat it was, happily followed the paper toy until it disappeared down a drain. Saddened and a little ashamed that he had lost the boat his older brother had made him, Georgie begins to walk home but is alerted by a gravely voice from within the blackness of the drain. Georgie investigates. He peers into the drain. To his surprise a smiling clown stands before him holding the boat…

…they never did discover Georgie’s body.

I vaguely remember my introduction to the horror film. My cousin was visiting, the curtains had been drawn on a sunny afternoon, and John Landis’ An American Werewolf In London had been placed in the VCR. I was seven years old. As I lay in bed for days after all I could see were those green hills shrouded in the black cloak of night, and the warning: ‘Stay on the road. Keep clear of the moors,’ delivered in that Yorkshire twang. Brian Glover’s short, controlled outburst – probably his unusual form of goodbye – ‘Beware the moon, lads.’