A book subscription firm in Melksham is using children from a school in Calne as 'guinea pigs' for a series of podcasts.

Tales by Mail has partnered with St Margaret’s Prep School in Calne to produce part of a bi-monthly podcast that will accompany boxes of books sent out to subcribers.

Kate Morris-Double, who co-founder Tales by Mail with Libby Harris, said: "We approached St Margaret’s and asked if they’d like to be our guinea pigs and form the first-ever Tales by Mail Pod Squad – AKA a book group made up of their students who would discuss the featured reads included in our box and record their thoughts for our podcast.

"We were thrilled when St Margaret’s agreed and lucky enough to get the books to their pupils ahead of lockdown.

"We supplied the school with 20 free books - two books per child - and gave the school some discussion points for a book group and instructions on how to record.

"We never imagined that this book group would need to take place via Microsoft Teams with all pupils at home during the pandemic."

"The children did a fantastic job though and recorded some soundbites, which we’ll piece together to make a book group discussion on our podcast episode, releasing early July.

"They also each recorded questions for the authors, which we’ll be passing on, and we’ll share the responses in the podcast episode.

"We’ve agreed to work with St Margaret’s on another two podcast episodes but we’re also actively recruiting for our next school Pod Squad via the sign up form on our website: www.talesbymail.com/podcast."