IN the opening chapter of York author Andy Winter's first published novel, a 13-year-old boy called Bert is on a school visit to a museum with his classmates.

A picture on one wall shows a man conjuring fire out of the ground and fighting a group of soldiers with his bare hands.

"The delusion of magic relied on a preposterous belief in warriors called mages," says a notice beside the picture. "It was said that they could move faster than any normal person, make machines that worked forever, perform huge feats of strength, and draw energy out of nowhere... does that sound real to you?"

Bert's classmates snigger when they catch sight of him looking at the picture. "Is this who you wanted to be when you were little, Bert?" one boy asks.

It's a scene that sets up the story which is to follow beautifully.

The world Bert lives in doesn't seem to have a name - but it's definitely not our own world. It's a bit like a version of England in the 18th century - but an England in which pirates sail airships, and scientists sneer at the possibility of magic in a way that makes you just know they're wrong...

Bert himself is an orphan, with an orphan's sense of not being wanted. He's quiet, shrinks from notice, and lives mainly inside his own head. When a popular girl in his class appears to be talking to him, he stammers out a reply - only to earn a disdainful look. She was talking to another girl standing behind him, he realises.

Yet within a very few pages of this rip-roaring adventure story for children aged nine plus, the quiet dreamer of a boy finds himself possessing the very magical powers he's long dreamed of - and, as he finds himself in the centre of a power struggle and is forced to flee with those airship pirates, wishing he didn't...

York Press:

Andy admits that lots of his friends suspect he based the character of Bert largely on himself. What, because he's an orphan?

No, he laughs - he grew up with his family in Scunthorpe. But because of his character. "Let's say I'm not the loudest person in the room!"

He dabbled with writing as a boy, but his friends were never very interested. That didn't stop going off to the University of East Anglia to study creative writing. He then went off to teach English in South Korea for a while, before returning to the UK and coming to York, where his girlfriend Jess was doing her MA.

He's now part of a very modern generation who seem to hold down several different jobs at the same time - almost one for each day of the week, in fact. One day a week he's a bookseller at Waterstone's in York. He's also a chocolate taster at Nestlé, and a TV extra - he's been in ITV's Victoria among other things. Occasionally, he also teaches creative writing on the University of York's Lifelong Learning programme.

And, of course, he's now a novelist too.

He got the idea for The Boy Who Went Magic following a conversation with a friend. They were asking each-other what they'd write about if they were going to write a book. "I said I'd do this, and this, and this ... and then I thought actually that's not a bad idea!"

He was supposed to be writing the best man speech for his brother's wedding. Instead, he spent a month bashing out the first draft of his novel. So did his brother ever forgive him?

"The best man speech went OK!" he says.

Thank goodness for that.

BLOB The Boy Who Went Magic by AP Winter is published by Chicken House, priced £6.99