Favourite books

Four or five years ago I had no idea who Terry Pratchett was. Then an uncle recommended him to me, and after one novel I was hooked. Pyramids and The Fifth Element are good, but the best is probably Feet of Clay. It’s nonsense, but entertaining.

Making music

I listen to everything, but I like late 60s and early 70s glam rock. The Rolling Stones, The Sorrows, The Mersey Rats. I’m a keyboard and piano player and I have a fiddle. I play reggae, Irish music, blues, soul, pop, cajun, you name it. I used to play in a Blues Brothers tribute band called the Booze Brothers. And another called the Arkansaw Chugalugs.

Out of Africa

I was in South Africa a year ago as part of a Warwickshire teachers’

professional development scheme. We went to a political play about apartheid in Johannesburg. I think they wanted us to see that South Africans were aware of their history, to see what the struggles, attitudes and values were for black and white. Before I went, I didn’t have a notion of what the problems were: I came back quite agitated.

Best films Any science fiction: Star Wars or 2001. I saw Master and Commander - it was good.

Something for school

The best Terry Pratchett to read to my class is Truckers. It inspires their imagination, the idea of a group of elves living in a department store and discovering there’s a world beyond it. It’s adventurous escapism. It takes children to places they wouldn’t imagine existed.

Treat in store

My wife is Italian so this summer we will be in a town called Santa Maria Capua Vetere. It’s about half an hour from Naples and has the second biggest coliseum in Italy (pictured), and a palace modelled on Versailles, where the Allies had their headquarters in the Second World War. There are Greek temples nearby. My degree is in history and these are amazing places to see: real history.

John Hall, 42, is a Year 4 teacher and music and ICT co-ordinator at St Anthony’s RC primary school, Leamington Spa. He was talking to Karen Gold