John Halvorsen - Perth Creative Exchange

John Halverson and his wife of 37 years, Mags, have recently retired as foster carers for Perth & Kinross Council. Their 20-year stint saw 90 children share their home for periods of anything from a few weeks to over five years. 

A graduate of Duncan of Jordanstone School of Art, John’s life has taken many twists, turns and detours before ending up in his cosy studio in Perth Creative Exchange, which is the most recent opening for Wasps - Scotland’s studio specialists.

Now his many interests come together under one roof. An animal-loving children’s book writer and illustrator, with a couple of puppet sidekicks – Bob the Dog and Wee Bob, John has drawn on his own childhood struggles and his experience as a foster carer to take his stories to schools across the area. He has also taught therapeutic art classes to people cope with personal trauma, worked with adults with learning difficulties and the homeless, and turns his hand to pet portraits!

John’s life has taken many twists, turns and detours.

John’s school years in Dundee were “horrendous”, characterised by merciless bullying. With a forceful father and over-compensating mother, his home life was also difficult. He left school as early as he could get away with “school didn’t work for me. I feel for kids who don’t fit well into mainstream school”. “Having a Norwegian name was enough to make me noticed, and I wanted to be invisible. I taught myself numbers, words and survival skills.”

It is this experience that makes John feel strongly about his role in “putting something back” – firstly in the form of his many years as foster carer “I fostered to reclaim my stolen childhood”, and latterly in taking his stories to local schoolchildren.

Gallery

Some particularly sad foster cases stay with him along with some particularly positive outcomes. He talks fondly of a phone call asking them to take in a seven-year-old boy, who turned out to be an eleven-year-old girl with such a “nightmare” life that “you couldn’t write about what had happened to her”.

John and Mags looked after her for a year before she moved onwards and upwards and now works in care herself. One girl they had from birth was deemed so badly damaged by her birth mother’s attempts to abort in late pregnancy that medical assessments questioned whether she would ever feed or walk properly.

I fostered to reclaim my stolen childhood.

John remembers clearly the “miracle” moment when he was singing to her, her eyes stopped wandering, she looked directly at him with a quizzical expression and he sensed a bridge had been crossed. From then on, bit by bit she worked towards her development milestones, to the stage that, now adopted and living in England, she is the ballet dancing DUX of her primary school, still proud of her Scottish roots.

“Some people have two cars” says John, “we had four buggies! If children came to us, they were treated as our children. If they needed a coat, or shoes we gave them to them,

“I was in the care system, my wife’s parents were carers and we adopted our son at four months, so we were involved in the process ourselves”

John is proud to have stayed in touch with many of the children he fostered; “I see them and I think, oh my word, she’s a great mum, I remember her when she was wee enough to sit on my knee! We operate a ‘no strings attached approach’ – they stay in touch if they want to, and many of them do. It is a privilege to have had a part in so many journeys.”

If children came to us, they were treated as our children.

It is his experience as a foster carer that has inspired John’s latest book in progress, called ‘Daddy John’ after the nickname his foster children used. He is also looking at creating children’s picture books for children in care to help them understand and cope with their situation.

Now on its sixth print run, John’s first book ‘The Big Brown Lazy Dog’ first came to him as a vivid dream when he was a student, only seeing the light of day some 20 years later.

Taking his stories into schools is, according to John, a way of combining his passion for writing and illustrating with his love of children. Younger children are delighted by the stories, slightly older primary-aged children want to know more about his writing process and route to publishing – but they all love his doggy puppet pals!

With themes of kindness and friendship, and characters based on some of the many people who have crossed his path, his books themselves draw on John’s varied experiences and life lessons.

Taking his stories into schools is a way of combining his passion for writing and illustrating with his love of children.

“Whether my books get published or not doesn’t matter. Its connecting to people that’s important. Also, kids like fun – it’s positive and empowering for them. There are those that hang back and those that come right up front to engage with the puppets, and that’s all fine.”

John’s studio at Perth Creative Exchange is his fourth attempt at a studio – one burnt down, one was a death trap with floors that flooded and blackened power sockets, and the third was in such a dodgy area that the Police advised him to leave before his studio was relieved of thousands of pounds worth of stock and equipment.

“I have been waiting for years for a space like this.”

Still best pals with his wife of 37 years and enormously proud of his other best friend, his son who he visits often in Edinburgh; at the age of 61, and about to launch into another job in a Perth homeless centre, John says he is “just getting started."

We can’t wait for the next chapter!

You can learn more about John Halvorsen's writing and illustration here.