Author donates books to Chesterfield school after vandals target playground

Andrew Powell-Thomas decided to send signed books to Arkwright Primary School following an incident in the school’s outdoor space last month.

The playground, which includes basketball equipment, tables and benches, chess pieces and dressing up boxes, was damaged in August. Vandals knocked over benches and destroyed some of the equipment including the dressing up boxes with costumes for the youngest students.

Ian Roberts, headteacher at the Arkwright Primary School said: “When I got there I saw the mess that was created the previous night. Me and Mr Phillips, the business site manager, spent quite a bit of time clearing it up and reorganising it.

“We have been able to repair a lot of things and there was not much long lasting damage. Unfortunately someone turned one of our outside taps on and soaked all the costumes and some of them had been water damaged and sadly had to be thrown away.”

After the incident, Mr Roberts tweeted about the damage and received many lovely responses from parents. He also got a message from children's author Mr Powell-Thomas who wanted to help.

Mr Roberts said: “Mr Powell-Thomas has absolutely no connection to our school. It was a really kind, lovely gesture that he did. It is greatly appreciated by myself and all of the school community. He wanted to donate some books to our school to show that there are kind people in the world that want to do the right thing. It was very thoughtful of him. The signed books arrived with a lovely note and we have got them in our library. I’ve also shared the message with the children at an assembly and they were really really happy to read it. It’s so great that we got two books signed specifically for our pupils.”

In a letter sent to the school Andrew Powell-Thomas said: “I was so sorry to hear about what happened to your playground equipment over the summer holiday that I wanted to do something. I can’t really help with new equipment - but I can send you a few signed books to show you there are a lot more good people in the world.”