For those of a certain age – and I am definitely of that age – David Baddiel will always be 'him off the Mary Whitehouse Experience'.

He went on to be Mr Fantasy Football and, of course, one of the writers of perennial football favourite Three Lions.

And now, alongside playwright and stand-up, he's a bestselling children's writer.

That's what brought him to a packed Memorial Hall at Marlborough College as part of the town's literary festival.

He was in town to discuss his new book The Taylor Turbochaser, the story of a young petrolhead Amy who, with her pals, adapts her electric wheelchair into a supercar before heading off on adventure.

The Gazette spoke to Baddiel before he took to the stage.

Explaining how he came up with his latest book, he said: "My starting point was, as in all my books, wish fulfilment.

"I used to spend a lot of time in my dad's car pretending to drive it.

"So when I started the idea for this book, the wish fulfilment was kids being able to drive.

"Then I thought how can I make that not just the standard thing of a boy who want to be able to drive, then it just occurred to me, the a wheelchair – especially an electric wheelchair with electric cars an all that – is sort of like a car.

"And what if you had a girl with an electric wheelchair who really wanted it to be a car. It came from that.

"I start with the story and then think what it might do and how it might work."

On whether writing for adults and children was a different skill, he said: "I don't think so. When I started to write children's fiction it was exactly the same thing.

"I had an idea that felt like a children's book. For better or worse I don't really recognise borders between types of storytelling so I wouldn't think "well I'm not a kids' writer so I better forget about that idea!".

Asked about children's access to books in the light of libraries closing and pressures on school services, Baddiel said: "I think there should be libraries at all schools. That's something that needs to have more resources given to it.

"Local libraries and school libraries need to band together and work something out so books are available for kids, especially in state schools."

Strictly fans will know Three Lions featured a couple of weeks ago with former England keeper David James shuffling around to the classic.

Baddiel tells me he watched it and having seen some of the negative reaction on Twitter, decided to be 'very nice', explaining: 'I've been asked to be on Strictly and turned it down and that's partly because I know I'd be terrible and so I admire the men and women who aren't natural dancers who do it."

Then we shuffled off to our seats to watch the show. Set up as a Q&A, it soon became a one-man show, with Baddiel getting children in the audience involved and reading (very funny) passages from his books.

You won't be surprised to learn there were plenty of laughs (and not just for the young ones).