West Sussex mum’s new children’s book helps toddlers and young kids get to sleep

Alison Reddihough, 56, who lives near East Grinstead, is the author of The Sleepytown Express, a book that has been ‘16 years in the creating’.

Alison, who has a background in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), said her picture book aims to revolutionise bedtime routines for children aged one to six.

She said: “My journey has been as an actor, writer and producer – that’s been the whole creative impetus in my life – but I was also very intrigued by language and holistic therapies.”

Alison said that NLP is all about the power of language and suggestions to create change.

She said: “There I was with a toddler boy who just needed me in the room every night and couldn’t get to sleep. This was about 16-17 years ago. I thought ‘okay, well I know about language and I know about writing so let’s see if I can merge those two together’.”

So Alison told her then three-year-old Harvey a gentle story about the Sleepytown Express steam train, putting in positive suggestions about ‘settling down’ and ‘having sweet dreams’. It worked so Alison wrote a song to go with the story, deciding to help other children too.

She said: “I did try to send it to a few publishers but back then it would have been a CD in a book, which would have been a bit clunky.”

After Alison and her husband Simon Roberts founded the personalised book company Tickled Moon in 2019, they decided to finally release the story themselves.

The book is available in both personalised and non-personalised versions and comes with a free audio version accessed via a QR code. The bones of the story, Alison said, is a child waiting for a train, which arrives, and then they climb onboard to snuggle into the comfortable seats.

She said: “In the personalised version you can put in between four and eight additional names of loved ones, friends, pets, cuddly toys, whatever is comforting to the child, so they know they are surrounded by those they really love before they go off on the journey.”

The non-personalised softcover is £14.95 from tickledmoon.com while the personalised version is £23.95 for a softcover and £29.95 for a hardcover. The music is recorded and arranged by David Simon and the book is illustrated by Jodie Wonford.

Alison said she took some inspiration for the story from the Bluebell Railway. She said: “There's just something warm and fuzzy about a steam train.”

Alison added: “I love writing for children. I think I’m a big kid at heart, so it comes naturally to me to get in their heads and think of things that would make them laugh or be delightful to them, or in this case to calm them and make them feel that bedtime is a really safe place and that the night is comforting and not scary and that they're surrounded by love.”

Both Alison and Simon have a background in acting, producing and filmmaking. They met in London while they were both working as actors and then lived in East Grinstead for about 22 years before moving to a more rural area nearby seven years ago.