I first met Shirley Hughes at the Society of Authors, Children’s Writer’s And Illustrators Group (CWIG) Summer Party, probably 1987. I had a book contract and so was allowed to apply for membership of the Society and was invited along to the party.
I was very new to it all. Travelling up to town from West Wales for the day, with my A to Z book of London maps, I found the old building, and was shown into the room where the party was being held.
Shirley spotted me immediately and came straight across to introduce herself and welcome me in.
“New blood!” she laughed. “You must be half the age of everyone here!” I actually think I was.
She introduced me to Edward Blishen, then the chairman of CWIG (a role I took on myself many years later) and presenter of Radio 4’s A Good Read Programme. I think I was a little starstruck just from the sound of his voice.
She dragged me over to meet Philippa Pearce too. Was I really in such august company and were they really interested in talking to me?
Then Shirley took me to one side and gave me a “talking to”!
“You are an illustrator too.” She said. “Do you still draw everyday? So many people leave art college and get lazy. You must draw every day – it’s so important!”
And she encouraged me to work on my style. “Our style is so hard won, people don’t understand,” she said.” I’ve never forgotten that and have often repeated it to new and would-be illustrators.
I assured her that I did draw every day and intended to continue. I don’t remember much more of the party, but I continued to meet Shirley at publishers parties and events over the years. You would hear people speak in hushed tones, as if the queen had arrived, “Shirley’s here!”
And indeed she was the queen of our little world of children’s books.
She was also quite an innovator. I remember first seeing Up and Up when I was an art student, being amazed by the the lightness of the drawing – the weightlessness of the girl who can fly – and all done with pen and ink, without any words, in a comic sort of format, but it was so obviously not a comic. It was literature without words.
When I met the indefatigable editor, Fiona Kenshole, at A&C Black, she showed me one of Shirley’s books. (I remember had a hamster in it.) The illustrations were simple black and white, pen and ink, but Shirley had flown, like the girl in Up and up. She had freed herself from the old strictures of text that had to be set out in lines, leaving pages and blocks for illustrations to drop in. This was before the Apple Mac and text on a curve. Somehow she let her illustrations float in and around the text.
We had long discussions about it. Fiona had a vision of new kinds of books, the Jets series, with “integrated text”. The publishers A&C Black would not invest in an Apple Mac, so we literally had to cut and paste every letter to set each word on a curve, setting the text free.
I worked on one of her first books, Mossops last chance – a very early Michel Morpurgo story. Oh my, there were tears! It required a coming to terms with a new paradigm of what text might do. I nearly threw in the towel and paid back my advance! What Shirley made look so easy was extremely difficult.
Fiona eventually changed my mindset. “Don’t be like a stationery camera on a tripod,” she suggested, “be like one of those Hollywood cameras on cranes that can move around, up and down, in and out.”: Now we have self-leveling iPhone gimbals and drones, so we take those dolly shots for granted. But Shirley worked it out first!
Of course, as a family growing up, we read her books at bedtime. Some phrases have become part of our family language. “Two shoes, new shoes, bright shiny blue shoes,” is often quoted when new shoes appear in the house. There was always a Shirley Hughes book in the pile borrowed from the library as well as a good selection in bedroom bookcases.
Thanks for your hard won style and insights, Shirley and the knowledge and understanding you passed on. Thanks for being so kind, always happy to chat and laugh. Always drawing, drawing, drawing. I promise I will do so too.