Q & A
1.
I was born in Sidcup Kent, although I was evacuated to the West Country
during the war, which I hated. I enjoyed secondary school: I went to
Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar School, where I was taught English by
a man called JH Walsh, who really inspired me.
2.
For the last 30 years, I have lived in South Kensington, in a late 19th
Century mansion flat near Earl's Court. I came to see friends there all
those years ago, liked it and stayed. It has turned out to be extremely
convenient.
I love the seaside and spend quite a lot of time in Hastings on the South
coast. Then, for about three months a year I go to France, to a house near
the Atlantic coast in the South-West. I work there, too.
3.
I love fish shops and stalls, especially in France, where they are very good,
and you can get mussels and oysters and all sorts of things out of the sea.
I eat a lot of fish and like cooking it because it is so easy.
4.
I am never quite sure when work finishes and
spare time begins. Sometimes I go and give
talks and lectures and that is also work but it
makes a change from drawing. In my real spare
time I read quite a lot of books, so that there are
generally eight or ten beside my bed that I have
started but not finished and perhaps will never
finish. Some of them will be in French. I read
them quite slowly and underline the words I don't
know, though I am often too lazy to look up what
they mean. I also have a house in France. I can
work there but my spare time is spent buying food (which seems to be
much more interesting there than in England), especially fish and mussels
and oysters. The countryside is very flat, so I can cycle round looking at
birds. Herons are my favourite.
5.
I seem to remember I thought that if I went to art school I would never go to a university (I wanted to read English) whereas if I did go to university I would still have the option of doing art. That was how it worked out anyway. So I studied English at Downing College, Cambridge, from 1953 - 1956.
Then, not knowing whether one could make a living out of being a cartoonist, illustrator or artist of any kind - and the general view seemed to be that you couldn't - I also did a year's teacher training at London University.
Having done that I thought I should try to be an artist of some kind. I went to Chelsea Art School as a part-time student, not exactly to learn to be an illustrator, but to learn more about drawing and painting.'
6.
Probably at about the age of 5. I remember a visitor during the war saying "He draws a lot, but he won't speak!". I used to do drawings for the school 
magazine and also for Punch. I knew someone who drew forPunch and I started submitting drawings. I did get some little ones accepted when I was about sixteen or seventeen. That was a start. They paid me seven guineas each. I didn't know what to do with the cheque; I didn't have a bank account!
Then when I was at Chelsea I got a regular job doing two drawings a week for Punch and I also started drawing for The Spectator. I began doing small drawings for them until they decided that they were going to have an illustrated cover, and I started doing that too.
I suppose the first proper book I ever illustrated was while I was on National Service, before university. I spent three weeks illustrating a booklet - called English Parade - used in teaching those soldiers who hadn't yet mastered reading. There was no alteration to my weekly pay-packet, but I was able to live at home and I was allowed to wear shoes instead of boots.
From time to time I had to show my work to a lieutenant-colonel for his approval. A few moments of silence and then: "Very good, Sergeant Blake. But I think .. the grass in this one ought to be shorter." "Yes sir. I'll see to it, sir." "And I think the creases in these trousers might be sharper." Of course, the problem with making the grass shorter in drawings is that you can't cut it: you have to do the drawing again. But at least it was preparation for encounters with editors and (worse) committees, later on.
7.
I was interested in education, drawing and English, so it seemed as if illustrating a children's book might be something I could do. I thought: I don't know whether they'll like it or not. I was 20-something so I thought I'll just keep on with it for a bit and see where I've got to by the age of 30, and if it's no good I'll give up and if it's alright I'll go on. By then it had begun to be all right so I kept on.
I didn't really know how to start. I talked to John Yeoman, who is a friend, and said "Could you write a book so I can illustrate it?" He could and did. It was called A Drink of Water.
8.
It was in 1968, with Patrick. Really it was a kind of protest because I was seen as a black-and-white illustrator, so I was never asked to do anything in colour. I retaliated by writing this story about a young man who made things change colour when he played the violin. So you see, it had to be illustrated in colour.'
9.
What you really do when you start to draw is you imagine that you are that person and you go into the reactions you think you would be having. I find myself doing the faces as I'm drawing them.
10.
I like drawing anything that is doing something. I like activity. Dragons are good because you can arrange them in interesting ways across the page, get people to ride on them, that sort of thing. Most animals are interesting to draw. Cars are difficult unless they are a bit broken down.
11.
To begin with, I was a bit nervous. He was quite a powerful figure. But we got on very well. He liked winding me up - only in the most harmless way. I often wore these white shoes, and he'd say 'Here's old Quent' - no-one else ever calls me that - 'here's old Quent, he's going out for dinner in his plimsolls!'
What was so nice about Roald was that he actually wanted the pictures - he didn't like it if there weren't enough. Not all authors are like that. We worked together for 13 years from 1977, until he died.
12.
The truth is I don't make much distinction between the drawings that I do for children and the ones I do for grown-ups. To me, it's all just drawing. In fact I didn't start off illustrating children's books. I drew for magazines, I drew jokes, I did drawings for the covers of paperbacks - such as the novels of Malcolm Bradbury, Evelyn Waugh and Margaret Drabble.
The most enjoyable books for adults that I do nowadays are illustrations for the classics, and they are mostly published by the Folio Society. The most recent ones are Candide and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I've also illustrated Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, although it would be hard to say if that is for adults or children; it's really for everybody.
13.
Athough it was hard work, it was marvellous too. For two years (1999-2001) my job was to do everything I could to promote children's literature. I gave lots of talks and interviews and wrote lots of articles. There were several new books, including The Laureate's Party , which brought together 50 of my favourite children's books, and Words and Pictures, which is a book about my work.
One of the most exciting things that happened during that time was putting together an exhibition for the National Gallery. In Tell me a Picture I chose 26 pictures, one for each letter of the alphabet: some Old Masters from the gallery collection; some modern works and some present-day illustrations from various countries. What the pictures have in common is that they all tell a story in some way. And the best part was that I was encouraged to draw on the walls of the National Gallery - not something you get to do very often! Over 250,000 people visited the exhibition!
I also had a particularly interesting experience producing a book in collaboration with 1800 French-speaking schoolchildren! A group of teachers based near my house in France had the idea of collaborating with an author-illustrator on a real book to be based on suggestions made by children from schools in the region, and they asked me to do it. The book was to be about humanitarian issues: bullying, racism, pollution, war. Via the internet we involved other French-speaking schools in London, Dublin, Luxembourg, even in Singapore. I used as many of the children's ideas as possible, and much of the text was stitched together from the children's writings.
The amount of work involved by all the teachers and by me was truly enormous, but the finished book - Un Bateau dans le Ciel (A Sailing-Boat in the Sky, in English) - is something I am very proud of. And the whole project took just a year from the first meeting to publication - une belle aventure (a wonderful adventure) as one of the teachers put it!
If you want to find out more about what I did as Children's Laureate, you can find it in Laureate's Progress, which is a kind of diary with pictures.
