A fun take on Waverley for children: Belle Media’s Captain Bobo-themed ‘Snakes & Ladders’ has already proved a hit with youngsters, who can pick up the free gatefold leaflets from outside the Purser’s Office
Many Waverley excursionists this summer will have noticed a new on-board attraction — the imaginatively conceived ‘activity sheets’ for children to read and fill in. Kay Hutchison, CRSC member and publisher of the Captain Bobo series of books about Waverley, explains how the project came about.
At the end of last year Paul Semple, general manager of Waverley Excursions Ltd (WEL), got in touch. He was keen to make Waverley more family friendly, recognising the need to nurture the enthusiasts of tomorrow. As part of that he wanted to have something to keep kids interested through the day.
Given our Adventures of Captain Bobo books are sold on board, we were keen to help.
Waverley would pay for the printing costs, and we would come up with the ideas, the artwork and the design.
First steps…
Kay Hutchison of Belle Media: ‘given that our ‘Adventures of Captain Bobo’ books are sold on board, we were keen to help’
We’ve had a bit of experience in creating activity sheets and puzzles connected with our books in the past. And the Captain Bobo website has its own downloadable colouring-in sheets and even a ‘captain’s hat’ template.
Rather than simply reuse these, we felt we needed something new that would work on board, something that would fit onto a small gatefold leaflet, with enough content to interest children over a prolonged sail. Paul also wanted something that would help the children engage more with the ship and hopefully sow the seeds for a new generation of enthusiasts to help sustain Waverley in the long term.
We needed variety, a mix of information and puzzles. And the more we thought about it, the more we realised that two leaflets might be best – one more puzzle based and the other offering a Waverley-themed ‘Snakes & Ladders’-style game.
Illustrations
Having sketched out the basic ideas we set our illustrator to work putting together a possible layout. We’ve worked with Matt on all the Captain Bobo books and although he is based in Worcestershire (about as far away from the sea as it’s possible to get), he loves working on the series.
Unlike the books, where dramatic licence allows us to take quite a few liberties with illustrations or facts, we recognised the activity sheets weren’t just going to be read by children and we needed to get the detail right. The silhouettes for finding objects in ‘Where on the Ship?’, for instance, caused a bit of trouble. One obvious subject was the small Eagle Foundry emblems that the sharp-eyed would find in the ship’s engine room, but no one seemed to have a close-up image readily to hand to provide a reference for the illustrator. Eventually WEL’s Lucy Morley had to get someone to take a photo and send it to us.
Some of the artwork was new, but we also reworked a few of the illustrations from the books, with ‘Splatty’ the seagull adding interest to ‘Snakes & Ladders’.
Research
The Word Search in the ‘Games & Puzzles’ leaflet (bottom left) includes ‘starboard’ and ‘gangway’ as well as ‘captain’ and ‘Thames’. Click on image to enlarge
In terms of the quizzes, we wanted the questions to be fun, not too difficult, but also ones that might spark interest in the ship, or even begin a conversation with parents and grandparents. For example :
Waverley replaced a paddle steamer of the same name sunk in World War II. Where did that happen?
a) Normandy b) Dunkirk c) Malta d) Sicily
We also needed to check all the facts and figures with the team and Paul finally needed to sign it off — and even they were a bit surprised at the number of ‘mileage equivalent’ transatlantic crossings they do in a season!
There was a bit of back and forth with various amendments, including increasing the size of FUN on the front cover, switching the sections around for balance, removing ‘the’ before Waverley s name in a couple of instances (oops), and changing the order of the multiple-choice answers to match SQA best practice: we knew Paul’s teaching background would continue to come in handy! We were then ready to test.
Market Testing
Lucy sent the final drafts to some carefully chosen ‘testers’ and we were relieved when the message came back – the testers loved it and, apart from some final styling suggestions to more clearly differentiate between the two leaflets, we were ready to proceed to the next stage.
All good, but where to put the answers and solutions? The Waverley Souvenir Shop webpage was suggested. Hopefully too, a visit online might encourage a few more purchases.
The leaflets stimulate children’s curiosity, and include ‘Spot the difference’ images and a colouring-in picture
Then we decided it was best to use QR Codes to navigate to the answers. We used QR codes for other things too – a link to the free Captain’s Hat downloads and to the audiobook released especially on the Glassboxx app (every download results in £5 going to the Waverley Appeal).
So, finally, after a couple of months we had two completed leaflets with 10 different games to keep children amused — and learning about Waverley.
Feedback has been positive and all the youngsters we’ve seen on board seem to be quite engrossed. Who knows, they might even buy one of the three Bobo books available in the shop (the books are also available in Gaelic, but you need to go to the Gaelic Books Council for those).
Or, even better, perhaps their parents might download the 10 Captain Bobo audiobook stories narrated by that great Clyde steamer fan John Sessions. The stories follow Waverley’s journey round the UK, from the Clyde to the Outer Hebrides, Llandudno, Jurassic Coast and finally on to Tower Bridge — there’s a story to go with every location. These are fun for children of all ages!
CRSC September 4th Zoom meeting
You can hear about other projects linked to Waverley and the Clyde when Kay is one of the speakers at a CRSC online meeting at 7pm on Wednesday 4 September. All are welcome. Zoom codes will be published due course.
The ‘Snakes & Ladders’ chart encourages children to familiarise themselves with what is going on around them during their Waverley trip and gives them a free souvenir to take home. On voyages over the past fortnight, youngsters have been seen poring over the leaflets in the dining saloon and on deck
Kay Hutchison is a director of Belle Media and Belle Kids.
Belle Media is a publisher, audiobook producer and podcaster. Belle publishes the best-selling Tigeropolis children’s book series and works with organisations linked to tiger conservation.
Published on 9 August 2024