About how this all began (and why Lily Burgess is the author on the cover of the books) By Matthew Burgess Being a full time lawyer I needed a creative outlet, and in 2010, began writing business books for other professional service providers. However there was still something missing. My wife said she married me because I made her laugh with the crazy stories I told her when we first met and that I should write a book. Many years later we began to raise 1, then 2, then 3 and finally 4, precious girls and I started to share stories of my childhood with them. It soon became one of our family's favourite pastimes listening to these stories about my childhood. Often embellished and seldom kept on track the girls would be absorbed. What was fact became blurred in the magic of the stories told. A strong undertone in the stories are various life lessons, while also ensuring a healthy dose of humour and role playing. When my third daughter, Lily, was about four years old, she said ”Daddy, please tell me another story from your mouth". From that day on, the stories became known as "Words from Daddy’s mouth". Over time, the stories became known amongst my daughters as Lily’s stories. It was therefore a natural progression that Lily Burgess would became the pseudonym for the authoring of my children books to help distinguish them from my other publications. With so many stories, we had to create a list to remember them all (at last count the list was nearing 500). So over time a game developed where the girls would choose a number from the list. Whatever story related to the number chosen would be the story that I would tell. Stories were usually told as the last part of the wind down of an evening, sitting together in a bedroom or on a lounge chair. I hope you enjoy sharing the stories with your children. Matthew (and Lily) Burgess
