A TALE OF TWO TAILS

When I’m asked which comes first in my picture books, the images or the words, I say the words come first. I like to do a first written draft and then, when I’m thinking about page layouts and the integration of image with text, I do the second draft, removing unnecessary words where images can do the work instead.     However, I do hold an image in my head right from the start – it forms the essence of the book.

    In my latest book, Flood– published in July 2014 - that first image was a bit paradoxical - a hen in a flood, safe in what looks like a red furry nest but really it's a fox’s tail. It was from this image that the story started to emerge; a hen trying to dodge the eyes of a hungry fox who wants to hold her in his stare and then eat her. So what's preventing the fox from doing just that?

Another tail. In order to survive the flood the fox has to grab the tail of an ox and cling on tight.

And then I realized that the anxious little hen, at the back of this string of animals relying on two tails to survive, might also be able to help. From my very scant knowledge of rudders, I knew that if you turn a rudder one way the boat goes the opposite way.(I tried it out with a toothpick and match box) So the hen in my story discovers, in the course of looking this way and that, trying to avoid the eyes of the Hungry Fox, that she can steer.

She squawks out directions, the fox turns his head, pulls on the tail of the ox who then changes direction. 

In this way they proceed through the flood until they reach land.

And so, from the first image of a hen in a foxy nest, I arrive at my story; a sort of flood fable with friendship at the end.

FORGET NOAH'S ARK!

Forget Noah’s Ark! When the floods arrive, there are three creatures who have their own ideas about keeping their heads above water.

Flood, a captivating picture story underlining the importance of co-operation in times of trouble, is the work of author and illustrator Gillian McClure who has set up Plaister Press to bring back into print some of her most popular books and to publish exciting new titles.

McClure’s distinctive illustrative style, which involves the use of watercolour, waxing and sprayed ink to obtain a ‘splattery’ look, is ideal for this warm-hearted cautionary tale about pulling together when a soaking wet disaster strikes.

It just won’t stop raining and out in the fields, Old Slodger the Ox keeps his head down and his eyes to the ground. Close by is Fussy Hen who is too busy squawking and looking this way and that for the cunning Hungry Fox. And sure enough the Hungry Fox has his beady eyes on Fussy Hen. What none of them has spotted is that the waters are rising rapidly and when the three animals finally realise that they must work together as a team if they are to reach land safely, there is a danger they might have left it too late…

A funny, characterful and beautifully illustrated way to show that getting on swimmingly solves a lot of problems!

(Plaister Press, paperback, £6.99)

I'm very grateful to Pam Norfolk, books editor for the Lancashire Evening Post newspaper group for this review.

THE DEBATE: ARE WE ALL ON THE SAME PAGE?

On 8 July in the Churchill Room at the House of Commons there was a debate: 'Are we all on the same page? Can a fair deal for authors be balanced with a fair deal for all?'

    The debate was organised by The Authors' Licensing & Collecting Society who invited writers and other professionals from the creative industries, politicians and broadcasters to debate the issue of what type of marketplace gives authors the best opportunity to make a living at a time when the perception of copyright by the public is seen as a barrier to free and easy access to the works of creators and when 'sharing' on-line content is not considered theft. 

    A technological revolution has brought greater opportunities for the commercial exploitation of works. This debate was asking whether the rights and interests of creators were now the weakest link in the value chain. And if so, what could be done to address  it.

    Baroness Floella Benjamin chaired the panel which included Wendy Cope, poet, Joanne Harris, novelist, Richard Mollet, Chief Executive of the Publishers Association and Richard Hooper, chairman of The Copyright Hub.

    We were told that now is a really important time for authors regarding their copyright and their ability to make a living from their creativity. Recent research carried out by ALCS, ‘What are Words Worth Now?’ looking into authors' earnings, showed that digital use earnings are going up but overall incomes are coming down and the proportion of professional authors who earn a living solely from writing has fallen from 40% to 11%. Professional authors are earning less than the Minimum Income Standard (the acceptable standard of living) in the UK while the UK creative industries are a world-leading success story. If writers are going to continue to make their vital contribution to the economy, they need to receive fair remuneration for their work; indeed, all creators have a right to be paid for their work.

    I was interested in what Richard Hooper, chairman of The Copyright Hub  had to say. Having recently completed a review for the Government into copyright licensing, Richard Hooper argued that instead of legislation, there should be copyright education and that licensing should become fit for purpose. He said there needed to be an effective database with a micro payment system in place to make it easier for the public (especially schools and colleges) to contact creators to ask for permissions and to pay to use their works; failure to do so would result in an email saying a theft had been spotted.

    It was all very interesting but, sadly, with the big internet service providers like Google invariably absent, would anything concrete ever come out of this debate?  

ILLUSTRATOR FAIR

 Last Sunday some SCBWI members were taking part in the first ever Illustrator Fair. No one knew what to expect. It was held in a newly developed area near Kings Cross.

 I followed the signs from the station, 

led on by the illustrations along the way, 

passed the open square of water spouts,

and the brand new House of Illustration, into an area of stands  

and found SCBWI friends and colleagues setting up.

We displayed our artwork and sold our books and all had a great day!

AN ISLAND SCHOOL

This is the smallest school I’ve ever visited – Kilchattan Primary School on the Isle of Colonsay.

My workshop was for an hour and I based it on two of my picture books that were inspired by the island, Selkie and We’re Going toBuild a Dam.

I worked with the whole school at once – here they are – all five of them – all different year groups!

At the end of the session, one of the boys asked if I’d like to see the school hens in the field at the back of the school. They had a lovely hen house built by the father of one of the girls. I asked whether they were troubled by foxes and was told there were no foxes on the island – “except,” said the son of the driver of the refuse lorry, “when one came over from the mainland on the ferry in my Dad’s lorry.”

Well there’s an idea for a story!

    I was over for The Islands Book Trust conference, celebrating the heritage of Colonsay and Donald Mackinnon. There was a photo of the old school and an account by Donald Mackinnon of his school days there in the 1840s and 50s. The school house was low and whitewashed on the outside; walls blackened by peat inside and two doorways but no doors. In the winter, to keep out the cold, the doorways were packed with furze until it all got burnt on the central fire. Then the furze was replaced with straw until that was eaten by cattle. The pupils wrote on slate with goose quills. Tables and benches were slabs of stone. Outside they played shinty.

    The day before the conference started I hired a bike and set off  for Balnahard and the beach. I passed the children in the school bus. They waved and I felt sorry for them; it was the most glorious day. Here are some sketches: 

STEYNING FESTIVAL

One of my favourite festivals is the Steyning Festival because Steyning was where I was brought up. On the May Bank Holiday weekend, I did a children’s workshop based on my picture book We’re Going to Build a Dam in the lovely garden at the back of Steyning bookshop. Here we all are in the marquee; I had a great audience – very responsive and imaginative.

In this part of the workshop, after looking at original artwork, the children have puppet characters and are building a dam out of card cut-outs of boulder, driftwood, pebbles, sand and seaweed. The pieces have velcro on the back and stick easily onto a board covered in black fabric.

Then, after the crab has pinched the dog’s tail and the dog has grabbed its favourite piece of wood out of the dam, there’s the fun of the dam all coming apart.

At the end the children drew their own dams.This is Camilla Fielder’s beautifully drawn dam with the crab 

and this lovely picture was done by her younger brother, Oscar.

GUMBLE'S YARD

Sadly, John Rowe Townsend has died; his funeral was on 3 April. He was married to Jill Paton Walsh. As their house is just a short distance along the bank of the Cam from my own, we regularly had tea together at 4pm and I’ll always remember John for his amusing anecdotes. He had a brilliant memory and could quote from books and recite poem after poem.

    John’s death prompted me to re-read his first children’s book, Gumble’s Yard (1961) 

The children in this story are poor, living in a deprived urban setting in the north of England. John was breaking new ground here, for until then children’s book characters were invariably middle class and living in pleasant settings. The Puffin edition has powerful illustrations by Dick Hart in a strong dark line.

     Gumble’s Yard is narrated in the first person by Kevin and starts with him walking, with his sister Sandra and their friend, Dick through a neighbourhood called the Jungle because all the streets are named after tropical flowers:

‘It was a fine spring day, not warm but with a sort of hazy sunshine. Summer was coming, and blades of grass were showing between the stone setts, and soon the weeds would blossom on the empty sites. The days were getting longer. Next week perhaps we would be playing cricket after school. There was a dog in Mimosa Row that I was getting very friendly with. I was going to make a soap-box car for Harold. Life was full of interesting things to do.

We walked three abreast, with Sandra in the middle. And as we turned the corner into our own street I felt happy and burst out singing.

‘Hark at him!’ said Sandra. ‘Not a care in the world.’

‘Where does it hurt, Kevin?’ asked Dick with mock sympathy.

‘I’ll hurt you in a minute!’ I said.

And we started a friendly scuffle, the kind that happens a dozen times a day. 

When their feckless uncle and aunt vanish, Kevin, Sandra and two younger children, with Dick’s help, are forced to do a moonlight flit to a deserted warehouse named Gumble’s Yard. 

    Stories about children fending for themselves and trying to avoid Social Services –

(‘the Cruelty,’ in John’s story) always fascinated me as a child. Eleanor Graham’s The Children whoLived in a Barn (1938) was a favourite book of mine but the children in that story were from a middle class family and the setting was much more idyllic than that of Gumble’s Yard. John’s book differs in another way from Eleanor Graham’s; the children in Gumble’s Yard find themselves caught up in a fast- moving mystery when they encounter a highly organised criminal gang operating at night in the deserted warehouse by the canal.

In both stories, the adults eventually return but while the children in Eleanor Graham’s story are returned happily to the comfortable existence they had known before, the children in John’s story are not so pleased to see their feckless aunt and uncle again and the prospect of returning to their old life is not appealing.

Kevin and Sandra have to come to terms with the fact that,

“Even an unsatisfactory family life is better than none.”

And accept their life as it is:

“So you see…we can’t always have what we want.”

“We can always hope,” said Sandra, in her matter-of-fact tone that often sounds so grown-up.

And the story ends as it began with the sunny optimistic refrain of childhood:

‘It was a fine spring day, not warm but with a sort of hazy sunshine. Summer was coming, and blades of grass were showing between the stone sets, and soon the weeds would blossom on the empty sites. The days were getting longer. Next week perhaps we would be playing cricket after school. There was a dog in Mimosa Row that I was getting very friendly with. I was going to make a soap-box car for Harold. Life was full of interesting things to do.

We walked three abreast, with Sandra in the middle. And as we turned the corner into our own street I felt happy and burst out singing.

‘Hark at him!’ said Sandra. ‘Not a care in the world.’

‘Where does it hurt, Kevin?’ asked Dick with mock sympathy.

‘I’ll hurt you in a minute!’ I said.

And we started a friendly scuffle, the kind that happens a dozen times a day.

I can hear John reading this passage aloud, with his quiet smile and a twinkle in his eye.