Lee Child, the best-selling author of the Jack Reacher book series, paid a visit to Welshpool High School on Friday.

During a question and answer session with pupils, the author discussed which adaptation of his work he prefers, his forms of inspiration and his history with Tom Cruise.

He told pupils: “I was fired from my job as a TV director in Manchester. In the 90s it seemed as if industries turned against the idea of experts, so it was in fashion to fire people throughout those industries.

“I was 39 years old, and I thought about what I could do when the main thing I was skilled at is what I’d just been fired from.

“I’ve been a reader all my life, I think I’ve read around 10,000 in my life, so thought I’d try writing. I thought the properties were the same as my work in TV.

“I took a step back and thought about the big picture. I realised what I did in TV was gave an audience what they wanted, so I put two and two together. I was an entertainer, the same as any other entertainer.

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“The attitude around writing is that it’s a fancy thing for people who smoke French cigarettes and wear leather jackets. But to be a writer the only thing you need is to be a reader.”

One pupil asked him about his experiences working on the Tom Cruise film adaptations of Jack Reacher and whether he preferred the ongoing television series based on the books.

(Image: Josh Price)

He said: “The films were fun to do, I enjoyed working with those people and I enjoyed working with Tom Cruise as a friend. He got a bit p****d off that we didn’t do any more movies with him.

“He has this thing where he sends cakes to people he’s worked with at Christmas. I had the cake for eleven years but then they stopped arriving. I think he was a little angered we weren’t continuing with the movies and were doing a TV show instead.

(Image: Josh Price)

“He wasn’t fired or anything, he just elected not to do a TV show when we decided we were going to adapt Reacher as a series.

“I think TV is a better reflection of the books. You can watch another episode in the same way you’d read another chapter.”

Mr Child also donated money to the school’s library after hearing that their annual budget was £100 a year.

He added: “It horrifies me now that we’ve got this situation where a school of this size and quality has such a pinched budget because of national politics. It’s something like 0.13p per pupil per year for the library. That’s shocking, it’s a scandal and it’s also stupid.

“We’ve got a complex future ahead and we need the next generation to be flexible, imaginative and versatile to deal with it. So I just thought I’d drop in ands try and encourage them a bit.”