The Primary National Strategy for England argues that teachers need use the QCA units of work (or whichever scheme their school follows) only as a baseline or fallback: drawing on their "own" expertise as storytellers, creative thinkers, problem-solvers and as experts on their own pupils, to design activities that are engaging, motivating and meaningful. Stories are especially useful in this task because they provide a creative approach to real-life settings, stimulating purposeful exploration. Stories on their own are not "real science": but they are one of the most powerful tools with which to inspire a real interest in science. In this article, the authors use the story of the prisoners' attempted escape from Colditz Castle as a starting point for work on materials. (Contains 1 figure and 1 online resource.)