A DAD who turned his hand to writing during lockdown has published his first book.

Carl Wheatley, a commercial services manager, along with his friend, teacher Simon Harthill, took it upon themselves to write a children’s picture book with the aim of inspiring children to know that they can be happy with just being themselves.

The book, ‘I’m Reggie Rockit’ follows a primary school student who does not believe he is cool because he tried hard at school.

However Reggie plays guitar and sings and is ultimately convinced otherwise.

Mr Wheatley, 46, wanted to “show children that you can do well at school and still be cool,” as well as “encourage them into music from an early age.”

The lockdown project was initially conceived of as a way of helping with the enforced home-schooling process at the time, which Carl was doing with his son.

Mr Wheatley, from Heaton, said: “I wanted to do something that would inspire my nine-year-old son Jude, that you if you set your mind to something you can achieve anything at any age.”

I’m Reggie Rockit may have started as a humble lockdown venture, but once they got the ball rolling Carl had loftier ambitions.

He added: “We always planned to take it to a wider audience. I thought ‘if my son can benefit then so can other children.’ Jude loved it.”

In fact, Jude loved his father’s work so much that he decided to dress up as Reggie Rockit for this year’s World Book Day.

The writing process came fairly naturally. Carl mostly came up with the ideas and Simon would helped write and structure it.

“I’ve always been a creative person,” said Mr Wheatley, who is also a keen guitarist, said.

“I’ve been writing songs in the last couple of years, so I think I took that experience into this. It all rhymes in the book so it’s similar to writing a song. I really enjoyed it.”

He added: “We’re going to try and do a series because we think we’ve got a good character here to inspire children. We’ve started to skeleton write some of the next ones. We’re just starting to get ideas down.”

I’m Reggie Rockit is now available to buy on Amazon.