After spending ten years working in foreign exchange at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch and the followed five years as a relationship manager at an international market leading technology company, writing children’s stories may not be the next expected step.

This is, however, exactly the path taken by Gavin Rhodes, a 38-year-old from Mill Hill. With a busy job and two children aged three and five, his time was limited so he began writing the five short stories which make up Superstar Kids while commuting to-and-from the city.

“From reading stories to my daughter every night since she was young, I realised there was a gap in the market for children’s books with good morals and contemporary illustrations, so I began writing.

“A lot of people were quite surprised that I managed to do this, but I just started making notes on my iPhone and it went from there, adding every day and editing it. It was the easiest way, just in your hand no matter what.”

The stories cover a few of life’s essential morals: sharing, behaving, helping, believing and tidying. I wondered whether it had crossed Gavin’s mind to write a book, whether for adults or children, prior to starting his family.

He tells me how growing up in Radlett he was always creative: “I was always the arty type. I was never the best artist at school, Watford Grammar, but always doing doodles and I was into rock so I’d always be drawing the band names.

“I’m always thinking about different ideas about things, whether its business ideas or creative. I think it was always something I was interested in doing.”

To create the book Gavin launched a competition at Central St Martin’s arts college to find an illustrator.

“I was inundated with entries from so many talented artists and I spent my evenings sifting through hundreds of entries” he tells me.

He eventually found the perfect match for his work, Aliyah Coreana. They spent 12 months working together to bring the tales to life.

The book is self-published through New Generation Publishing. Details: superstarkidsbook.com.