Childhood Illustrated

It’s been far too long since I updated this news page I’m not going to bore you with why and what I’ve been doing instead and how I’m rubbish and blah blah blah blah. I’m here now and that’s what counts, right?

Anyway. I’ve been doing illustrations for an instagram hashtag called ‘Childhood Illustrated.’ It’s been started by one of my favourite humans and artists Helen Stephens, an illustrator based in Northumberland who also happens to be the co-founder of The Good Ship Illustration, whose course I did over lockdown.

So yeah - childhood illustrated! What is that? Well, it’s simple really. Think about your childhood memories and draw them. That really is it! But it’s great because it’s an amazing resource for an illustrator, especially anyone interested in making picture books for children. It makes you realise what a very particular view of the world we have as children, what quirks of life and circumstance we accept as normal, because you simply don’t know any different. Sometimes it’s funny! Sometimes, less so. But the point is, they are your memories, nobody else has them, even shared ones with your siblings or relatives as only you will have remembered them in your own particular way.

I’m lucky, I had a normal-ish childhood, apart from moving around a lot when we were little. But we also spent a LOT of time from when I was aged eight to about fourteen, at a remote house in the Western Highlands. The house had no mains electricity, no mains water and it was about three miles from the nearest village, and about 50 miles from the nearest supermarket (Safeway, in Fort William)

The first time we visited this place, I was eight. My sister was seven and my brother, just three. My parents drove us from London in a Renault 5, all five of us and our luggage. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more stunned by arriving in a new location. When we finally staggered out of the car, many many hours and an overnight stop-off with our Nana in Edinburgh later- the silence and big-ness of it didn’t quite compute in my eight-year-old brain, who had only known traffic, pavements, noise and street-lighting.

But for me, it was an easy adjustment to make. I didn't mind the silence or the big-ness and I wasn’t afraid of getting lost. I didn’t miss the pavements or even watching telly. I didn’t mind the dark (and it got very very dark) and I got to know the names of the sea-birds like they were old friends and I could tell the difference between a distant buzzard and a crow from the way they flew. My brother, who was so very little, was allowed to just wander off (supervised by his sisters of course) but we were free to do as we wanted without much interference from our parents.

I think about this time and place an awful lot as I wonder if it’s the only real constant in my early years. We had a rather itinerant childhood in the beginning, moving from place to place and starting new schools and leaving again. (From Kent, to Canada, back to Kent, Berkshire, (I think it was Berkshire) then London, then Hampshire and finally - Scotland, my mum’s birthplace and where we finally had a permanent home.)

So I’ve illustrated some of the most distinct memories, but often they’re hard to pin down - it’s sounds or smells or feelings that I remember, rather than specific events.

I miss it loads, but it’s in another lifetime now, I don’t know how I’d feel about going back. There’s probably loads that’s changed that I might resent and want it to be like it was when I was little. But then again it might be nice to see the old place again. One day, maybe.

So I have popped three of these drawings on the ‘WORK’ section of this website. Do have a look!