Mairi Hedderwick

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

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For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.

Presenter0:34

My Castaway this week is the author and illustrator Marie Hederwick.

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Her most famous creation is a little red haired character called Katie Morag, who in Wellies in a Kilt has skipped her way through fourteen books and a twenty six part T V series. Katie lives on the imaginary isle of Struay with her parents, siblings, cousins, grannie, and prize winning sheep

Presenter0:56

Like her creator, she relishes the rhythms and freedoms particular to life on a wee Scottish island, but

Presenter1:02

That's where the similarities end.

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The author was born and brought up an only child on the mainland of the Lowlands she lost her father when she was just twelve and says she was never part of a close knit family.

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As a grown up, all she wanted was to quit the rat race and be an island crofter.

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But after a decade she left her dream behind in favour of a more stable income and a secondary school for her kids.

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She says, I have a notion that children's writers explore unresolved questions in their own childhoods. I certainly know I do.

Presenter1:36

One of the other things you say, Murray Heddewick, is that little Katie Morag keeps a watchful eye on the grown ups.

Presenter1:41

What is she watching for, I wonder?

Mairi Hedderwick1:44

Well, I just remember as an only child that was really part of one's day, was actually being able to spend a lot of time working out what adults were up to, being a bit naughty and eavesdropping visually. I wouldn't say I did it deliberately, listening behind doors or anything like that, but it was a world that was very interesting. I didn't have all the other kind of things that you're learning if you've got siblings that take up time, take you away from the adult world.

Presenter2:12

Many, many books, Katie Moragbooks, fourteen, I think, before she appeared on T V.

Presenter2:16

When I watched it, it seemed like an almost obsessively faithful interpretation of your work, certainly, well actually not just visually, in in every possible way. So I'm presuming you went on set to watch it being pretty much. I was very lucky, yeah. And so what was that like when there she was alive and kicking and in three D? Running across the beach and past the croft and so what

Mairi Hedderwick2:29

I was very

Mairi Hedderwick2:31

Yeah, and so

Mairi Hedderwick2:37

That's the cross

Mairi Hedderwick2:39

Was that? Very emotional. Was it? I mean, there was one uh which was actually on the beach, Grandma Mainland's wedding, and it's this lovely beach in in Lewis. And watching it, I actually started crying. I got so emotional.

Presenter2:52

In the books the the detail in your illustrations is mesmerizing. It really is uh terrific. Also often very amusing indeed. You know, there is the little rosy cheeked bot of the toddler with the nappy drooping off it. There is the adult at the end of the day sitting on the sofa, slumped, who's had one dram too many. A lot of it is very funny. It's shot through with genuine realism. I'm guessing that that is entirely intentional.

Mairi Hedderwick3:18

It is, because when I did the first Katie Moore, my children were teenagers, long beyond the storytelling stage. So their books, when they were small, I found them so boring sometimes. And the illustrations were very beautiful images on a page, but actually they didn't tell you much. Also, I knew the most important thing was that storytelling was a shared activity at the end of the day that the adult can enjoy as well. So if you look in the Katie Moore books, you will see lots of little adult jokes.

Presenter3:50

You are a travel writer, too, but all your output has concentrated on a very specific subject matter, and it's always located in the Highlands and Islands. I've never seen anything by you on inner city Manchester or the streets of Manhattan. Why is that? I couldn't do it.

Mairi Hedderwick4:07

When I started out in my career in publishing, I mean, I did get offers of jobs to illustrate other writers. I remember the one, it was an Australian story, and it was a boy and girl living in Sydney. And I actually realised I didn't even know how to draw Australian houses. I would have had to research, it would have been very

Mairi Hedderwick4:28

Not in any way true to me or what I naturally can do. Tell me about your first choice then this morning, Murray Hedderwake. What have you chosen and why? Well, I think we'd better let Katie Morricover say straight away,'cause I think a lot of people know I get a bit tired of her sometimes.

Mairi Hedderwick4:44

So we'll give her her music from the film. It's actually Grandma Mainland's theme. And I like this one because this is Grandma Mainland the first time you see her arriving. And she's a rather britzy character. Oh yes, she's very different from the island Granny. And she arrives with all her pink suitcases. And it just has this kind of Wild West feel like to it. Here she's coming. She's going to sort everybody out.

Presenter4:53

And she's a rather literal.

Presenter5:39

That was the Grammar Mainland theme composed by Donald Shaw for the Katie Moorek T V series.

Presenter5:45

Katie Moore adds on the primary school curriculum to teach children about the geography of the islands. What did you

Mairi Hedderwick5:51

Do you read as a child? Yeah.

Mairi Hedderwick5:52

Well, I have to admit I was brought up in a house where there were no children's books. None? No, no. I had none of the standard Winnie the Pooh, Beatrix Potter. Did you read something then as a little girl? Well, the Bible was there a lot and there was uh Pilgrim's Progress which had lovely engravings in it. I remember Chick's own. I mean I'm quite old, you know, Kirsty. And then there was the Beano and the Dandy, but I didn't know anything about that culture.

Presenter5:57

But

Presenter6:20

So where and when did you see your first children's book?

Mairi Hedderwick6:23

It was Enid Blyton. Must have got word of mouth about it because I remember going down to the Simpsons newsagent in Guruk, waiting, because it was always July, that these books came out. And I actually could visualize, especially in one of them called The Island of Adventure, she describes the sea and the sea birds, and I saw for the first time

Presenter6:44

Yeah.

Mairi Hedderwick6:47

the Hebrides through the medium of Enagliton.

Presenter6:50

Your own stories are they do have a charm to them, but they're not a rose-tinted view of the world. They incorporate subtly all of the complexities of family life. You know, you've got the absent gallivanting grandfather who goes off in his helicopter. You've got the love rivalry between the two grandmas and this character called Neely Begg. There are psychological vulnerabilities. Sometimes the mother looks like she's pretty close to some sort of nervous collapse. Why in a children's book is that important?

Mairi Hedderwick7:19

This is the awful thing, analysing how I do it.

Mairi Hedderwick7:22

The essence of all the Katie Moore books are to do with a time in my life, in our family's life, which was the magic time on the island of Cole, bringing small children up. I mean, where better? But also I always have a moral there's got to be something resolved in a Katie Morgue story.

Presenter7:29

Yeah.

Mairi Hedderwick7:39

I mean, you know, there's a real version to the teddy bear story. If you really want to know the adult version of it, it's quite traumatic.

Presenter7:44

I really do.

Presenter7:46

Yes, this Tiresome Ted is a story where Katie Morag throws her favorite Teddy over.

Mairi Hedderwick7:50

Fever Teddy.

Presenter7:51

For the sea wall.

Mairi Hedderwick7:51

'Cause she's in a bad mood. Yes. And I was in a bad mood in my mid-thirties.

Presenter7:53

Yeah.

Mairi Hedderwick7:56

and I took it out on my teddy bear, which my children never played with. He was very old fashioned and hard and full of straw and nobody liked him. So I just did it as a dramatic kind of a way with childhood things.

Mairi Hedderwick8:11

And he actually got washed up six months later on a beach quite near to where he'd been kicked in.

Mairi Hedderwick8:18

So that was him back, and he had to be so celebrated.

Mairi Hedderwick8:22

And then we were leaving the island for all sorts of reasons, and the house was sold. So this mankey old Teddy

Mairi Hedderwick8:29

having been in the sea for a while, was pretty stinky, even though he'd been dried out. I took him on the dump run. I'm afraid in those days we all dumped things into the sea, and there was this cleft, and over he went the back of the trailer.

Presenter8:36

So

Mairi Hedderwick8:43

And two years later, when I went back to the island on holiday, having sold our house on the other side of the island completely,

Mairi Hedderwick8:51

Here he was no washta.

Mairi Hedderwick8:54

I mean, I still have him. Do you? Yes. He's only got one leg left and his head. But there he is. So that, you see, was the source for Katie Moore.

Presenter9:03

Tell me about your second choice this morning then, Marie Hedderick. What are we going to hear now?

Mairi Hedderwick9:07

You're going to hear over the hills and far away.

Mairi Hedderwick9:10

And I remember distinctly as a child being brought up in Guruk, and we were high on the hill.

Mairi Hedderwick9:16

And over the other side it was Dunoon and Blair Moor and the hills of Cowell.

Mairi Hedderwick9:22

And when I heard that phrase over the hills and far away, I knew I wanted to go there, across the water, and over the hills and far away.

Speaker 39:31

Tommy was a piper's son He learned to play when he was young And all the tune that he could play Was over the hills and far away.

Mairi Hedderwick9:35

Well he

Speaker 39:43

Over the hills and a long way out, The wind showed where my top-notch off.

Speaker 39:54

Tom with his pipe made such a noise That he pleased both the girls and boys They all stopped to hear him play Over the hills and far away

Presenter10:05

That was Martin Carthy singing Over the Hills and Far Away.

Presenter10:08

So, my Hedderwick, your father was a he was an architect. He himself had had a relatively complex early life. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Mairi Hedderwick10:17

Yes, he was actually born in the then Belgian Congo.

Mairi Hedderwick10:21

His father, my grandfather, got involved with a missionary society that were sending people out to Africa. And he wrote back to the people that hosted him in Bath to say that he was doing God's work and he would like to marry one of the daughters of the household. And if the father would read this letter out, my grandmother would know.

Mairi Hedderwick10:46

that she was being called.

Mairi Hedderwick10:48

Because he couldn't remember her name. So this happened, and my grandmother always said, It's me, it's me.

Presenter10:53

And so your father was born out of that marriage and that union in the Belgian Congo.

Mairi Hedderwick10:56

China Union.

Mairi Hedderwick10:58

Yeah, well at six months old he was sent back and brought up by the aunt in Guruk. And my grandfather never saw him until he was fourteen years old.

Presenter11:08

And so your father had been brought up in this rather confined, strict, proper, middle class Guruk household. Your mother, on the other hand, was one of twelve. She was from an Irish immigrant background.

Mairi Hedderwick11:13

Middle class

Mairi Hedderwick11:19

Yeah.

Mairi Hedderwick11:21

How did they meet?

Mairi Hedderwick11:29

A housekeeper's job was advertised, and my mother applied for the job, and she became the housekeeper.

Presenter11:37

Then would have been considered.

Mairi Hedderwick11:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Presenter11:40

Yeah.

Mairi Hedderwick11:41

Uh

Presenter11:41

Uh

Mairi Hedderwick11:41

Uh Uh Ended Roman

Presenter11:41

Romance and how did romance blossom?

Mairi Hedderwick11:43

I don't know. I don't know. I often look back at it now.

Mairi Hedderwick11:47

'Cause tragically, of course, especially for her, but then maybe for me too, he did die, you know. He was fifty two when he died. Yeah, right. And you were about twelve, coming up twelve. What what are your memories of him as a dad?

Presenter11:53

He was fifty-two when he died. Is that right?

Mairi Hedderwick12:01

Well, somebody very caring, a lot of humour. I sensed he was somebody that didn't have good health, because in those days twice I was farmed out to other relatives, and it was called a nervous breakdown. He was a very talented watercolourist.

Presenter12:18

Would you see him paint in his spare time?

Mairi Hedderwick12:20

Yeah, I've got some of his watercolours. They're very good, very competent.

Presenter12:22

Yeah.

Presenter12:24

What are they all what are they off? Oh, west.

Mairi Hedderwick12:27

Uh

Presenter12:27

Uh

Mairi Hedderwick12:27

Yeah.

Presenter12:27

Uh Aaron and uh the boats and the Clyde, the yachts.

Presenter12:31

Let's have some more music and talk more about your family in a second. Tell me then about this next choice.

Mairi Hedderwick12:36

Oh, well, this is my dad, you see, my blue heaven. I have very few memories actually of him, but I do remember this. He would sing this song and whistle it too. And it's that lovely bit in it, Molly and Me and the Baby Makes Three. From an early, early age I knew this was something terribly important to him, coming back from his pressurized work, coming back on the bus. He never had a car, he wasn't that kind of person. And this was his heaven.

Speaker 413:07

Turn to the right.

Speaker 413:09

There's a little white light We'll lead you tomorrow

Mairi Hedderwick13:10

Yeah.

Mairi Hedderwick13:12

We'll lead

Speaker 413:14

Blue heaven.

Speaker 413:18

You'll see a smiling face, fireplace, a cozy room.

Speaker 413:25

Little nest that's nestled where the roses bloom Molly and me

Speaker 413:32

And the baby makes three We're happy in my In my blue heaven

Presenter13:40

That was Frank Sinatra singing My Blue Heaven. You said, Marie Hedderwick, that you're

Presenter13:44

Your dad travelled each day on the bus from Greenock back home to Goorock. You went to the local primary school, but they did find the money to send you to a a private school by the time you were old enough to do that, and that was half an hour away in Kilmacombe. What are your abiding memories of the trip to school and what school was like when you got there?

Mairi Hedderwick14:00

I was the only child who went to this private school from Guruk. And the full uniform, you know, the Panama hat and the summer and the Velour hat.

Mairi Hedderwick14:12

And the other people in that bus and oh, you know, in the days when buses used to steam up in the rain and and you smell all the wet clothes and and there was a lamplighter. He used to stand at the bottom of the stairs, you know, and get off every so often to light the street lamps in the winter.

Mairi Hedderwick14:28

And I knew I was different.

Mairi Hedderwick14:32

But I wasn't.

Mairi Hedderwick14:34

It was not a good memory I have of that time, because it actually caused a lot of confusion and tension when I came back home.

Mairi Hedderwick14:42

and all my relatives, who were all very straightforward working class people. But then I was educated to be this horrible little snobby girl. Sort of uptight. Oh, it was a class thing.

Presenter14:53

Sorry.

Presenter14:55

Price

Mairi Hedderwick14:55

Wh when did you find out you could draw? Oh, at school, definitely. There was a a bit of a tension between the music teacher, piano, and uh art, but the art teacher won. Did you enjoy drawing? Oh, yes, yes, of course.

Presenter15:09

Did that give you confidence?

Mairi Hedderwick15:11

I don't know. I've never been a confident person. And even now I look at my artwork and I say, Oh, God, I could have done that so much better. It's so badly drawn.

Presenter15:23

Yeah.

Mairi Hedderwick15:23

You think of that when you look at the ones

Presenter15:24

That that are published in your books today.

Mairi Hedderwick15:25

Yeah

Presenter15:28

You said that you were eleven, just coming up to twelve, when your father died. Do you know what he died?

Mairi Hedderwick15:33

No, it was a bit of a mystery. He went into hospital on a Monday and then on the Friday he was dead and there had to be a post-mortem and they could not find a reason. I mean, obviously heart failure. But there was a possibility that it could have been something latent from his birth. How was your mother? Well, she was very, very distressed. She was never a woman who could show emotion.

Mairi Hedderwick16:02

I remember holding her

Mairi Hedderwick16:04

And I look back and I can see it visually. What who did I think I was?

Mairi Hedderwick16:08

Telling her?

Mairi Hedderwick16:10

that uh my father

Mairi Hedderwick16:12

Was with God, and God needed him. I was taking the role of being the comforter of her.

Mairi Hedderwick16:20

And we had a pretty rocky journey from then on because

Mairi Hedderwick16:23

It was almost as though this Molly baby and me, that little lovely triangle,

Presenter16:28

Hint

Mairi Hedderwick16:29

had been shattered.

Presenter16:31

If you were comforting or endeavouring to comfort her, who was comforting you?

Mairi Hedderwick16:35

Well, Rap, the dog, right.

Presenter16:37

Right.

Mairi Hedderwick16:38

Rob and I used to go for long walks, so I could talk to him.

Presenter16:42

You decided then that that art was the path that you would follow. There of course was a very good art school in in Glasgow, still a very noted art school. You wanted to go to Edinburgh. Was that a deliberate ploy to get away from?

Mairi Hedderwick16:53

I convinced my mother that Edinburgh was a better art school because I would just get home at the weekends. It was sudden freedom, it really was. It was totally classless. For the first time in my life, you had room to actually develop your personality without any pressures. What were you wearing?

Presenter17:03

Yeah.

Mairi Hedderwick17:10

Oh, I wore things like tweed jackets. Very Yes. Oh, I was very proper. First year, definitely. There was a group of us that looked like we'd just

Presenter17:20

Good girl.

Presenter17:22

Right, time for some more music, Marley Hedderwick.

Mairi Hedderwick17:25

That's Bach's double violin concerto. So I've chosen that one because it is part of the time in my life where I was very involved with music at school. And when I left school, I used to go to concerts a lot and got to know several people in the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

Presenter18:43

That was the third movement of Bach's double violin concerto in D minor, performed by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra with John Tannell and Jamie Laredo on violins. So the Isle of Struy, the one that Katie Morag lives on, this imaginary island, is based, as many people will know, on the the real-life Island of Coal. The first time that you went to the Island of Coal was you're now you're wrinkling your nose. Do you l not like me saying that it's based on the Island of Coal?

Mairi Hedderwick19:04

Do you like nothing?

Mairi Hedderwick19:06

No, no, on you go, on you go, Kirsten.

Presenter19:09

Well, I really don't want to upset my castaway. Anyway, you first went to the Island of Coal as a it was a holiday job. You'd applied for this holiday job, you'd seen an advert for. You were going to be mother's help to the Laird and his family. That sounds rather grand. What what happened when you arrived?

Mairi Hedderwick19:17

For this holiday job.

Mairi Hedderwick19:21

And his family

Mairi Hedderwick19:24

Oh, no, not really, because well, in those days there was no pier, just a little jetty, so a little boat, the ferry boat, would come out and the side door of the big boat would open, the old clay moor. And I knew this was the Laird steering, you know, alongside in the little boat. And he was had a kilt on, and he'd a Turie bonnet, and he had a pipe. So I said when I got into the boat, I I am the new mother's help. He said, No, no, no, he said, I'm not the Laird, the Laird's on the pier waiting for you. And the Laird had a skip bonnet and a donkey jacket.

Presenter19:55

I would disappoint.

Mairi Hedderwick19:56

He was a farmer.

Presenter19:57

Right.

Mairi Hedderwick19:57

A very hard worked farmer.

Presenter19:59

So we're talking now about the late 1950s. I'm imagining no electricity.

Mairi Hedderwick20:03

No electricity. Running water? No. Well, running water from the burn, yes, and it was very brown because it was very peaty. It was hopeless trying to clean the bath.

Presenter20:10

So take me through your morning routine as a mother's help.

Mairi Hedderwick20:13

Well, up every morning and the first thing you did was to rake out the boiler,'cause that did everything, and then go up to the well to get the drinking water, and also going over to the home farm to get the milk. But oh, it wasn't hard work,'cause it was joyous. I was just so struck by the way of life. There was still the Gaelic speaking community there. You see, that's all gone. Well, on call it has, because the island's expanding now because of so many incomers, that's a good thing. But my memories come from a time when I knew the island as perhaps I'm portraying Katie Morag's Island.

Presenter20:50

So by the early nineteen sixties then you had decided that you would make your permanent home there. By by this time you had a a child just a few months old?

Mairi Hedderwick20:57

Well, yeah, no, Ronnie and I had uh decided to do our hippie dropout thing. So we had six breeding cows and seventy two draft ewes were called, because you get them cheap because their teeth were very old, but you hoped that their lambs would of course be wonderful. And it was the idle, it was the life. And still, if I could do it, would go back to that way of life because it's got a purpose to it, living that way. Yeah.

Mairi Hedderwick21:26

Yeah.

Presenter21:26

Let's have some more music, Murray Hedderwick, then. We're on your uh your fifth disc. Tell me about this.

Mairi Hedderwick21:31

It's Telegraph Road and it's starting off saying, you know, somebody's going out into the wilds and they've got their little cabin and they've chosen their simple life.

Mairi Hedderwick21:41

And I like the idea of that, especially on this desert island, because it will remind me, I'm quite happy on this desert island.

Speaker 421:48

The cabin had a winter store And he plowed up the ground by the cooling shore

Speaker 421:56

The other travelers keep walking down the track And they never went further, no, they never went back

Speaker 422:06

Then came the churches, then came the schools, then came the liars, then came the rules.

Speaker 422:15

The trains and the trucks with their load And the dirty old tramp

Speaker 422:20

It was the telegraph.

Presenter22:23

Dire Straits and Telegraph Road. Tell me, Murray Hedawake, how did you meet Katie Morag?

Mairi Hedderwick22:28

Well, it was a brief, because I had been illustrating for other writers for several years.

Mairi Hedderwick22:34

And it was an editor who said, Why don't you write your own story and then you'll get 100%?

Mairi Hedderwick22:40

So my children were teenagers at that time. We were living on the mainland all that, you know, had happened a long time ago that we left the island. And I just inevitably thought this is a celebration.

Mairi Hedderwick22:51

And she is me because I always wanted red hair as a little girl.

Mairi Hedderwick22:56

I've just had my D and A done and I actually am a red haired gene carrier. So I mean, I don't have it, but my father had it. And also that jumper is just a shorthand for the fairyl jumpers that all little girls of my generation wore.

Presenter23:08

Oh.

Mairi Hedderwick23:11

But she a she has not got a kilt. She has a skirt, because that was my daughter. She wore a l a little tube skirt on a skirt, which I made for her.

Presenter23:19

That's something.

Presenter23:21

So it's not a kilt. It's not a kilt, no. And each Katie Morag story has taken you, is it right, about six months to write and illustrate?

Mairi Hedderwick23:31

Yeah.

Presenter23:31

Um I've heard you say that you get

Mairi Hedderwick23:34

Get very low during the process. Is that true? Yes, I think it's all creative people. You start off with a wonderful idea.

Mairi Hedderwick23:40

And then you start to work it through. And then there's that point at which, you know, I realize it's heading in the wrong direction. And well, hopefully before that latter stage I will start again. But when you get your advanced copies, I never look at them because I know

Mairi Hedderwick23:57

I could have done it so much better.

Presenter23:59

Looking at the books, there are, you know, there's little Liam under the table kind of squeezing out his necessary job into a potty. There's the mother breastfeeding. There's a lot of realism in this.

Mairi Hedderwick24:07

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter24:08

Uh

Mairi Hedderwick24:08

Yeah.

Mairi Hedderwick24:10

to get you to rub those bits out. The breastfeeding scene in the Tiresome Ted story, the editor was very uncomfortable about that. I said we'll have to remove that and I stuck out for it. But there were, I'm afraid, in Glasgow two libraries that refused to have the book.

Presenter24:23

Um Granny Island, there are these two uh grandmothers. There's Grandma Mainland, who's terribly proper and always wears pointy shoes and a nice necklace and has her hair done. Then there's Grannie Island, who drives a tractor and wears overalls and can get the sheep out of the boggy loch and do all that stuff.

Mairi Hedderwick24:38

Yeah.

Mairi Hedderwick24:40

She was meant to be grandpa, is that right? Yeah. He was called Grinpa. Now, in those days, you had to have co-publishing rights with American publishers for colour. And when they saw the grandfather, no, can't have that. Because there were a lot of intimate scenes sitting on his knee, sleeping in his box bed. And they said no, no. And that's when I'd done a lot of the artwork and I thought, right.

Mairi Hedderwick25:05

So I changed the head of the grandfather with his grey overalls and his grey Fergie tractor and made it into a woman's head.

Presenter25:14

Let's have some more music, then, Marie Hedderwick. Tell me about your sixth choice of the morning.

Mairi Hedderwick25:18

Well, this is Kirstie McCall and it's Mamba de la Luna, but when you listen to the music, you just know how happy she was at that time in her life.

Speaker 425:29

An island where the people are kind, and the rest of the world seems far away.

Speaker 425:41

Maybe it's only in the back of my mind. But I know when I go, that's where I'll stay.

Speaker 425:54

Come on, come on, please l'ai, lesions ce bon c'est bon, please la.

Presenter25:59

Kirstie McColl, I'm part of Mamba de la Luna. Tell me more about this idea of enjoying solitude. I noticed a house which was shown as your house in an article about you, and it was this beautiful-looking whitewashed stone traditional island house. It looked out onto this white spit of sand and the sea beyond. I couldn't see any road. Where was the road or the path?

Mairi Hedderwick26:11

Traditional I

Mairi Hedderwick26:18

No, no, there wasn't. There wasn't. It was a mile and a half beach, and when the tide was in, you couldn't get to it. It's the most beautiful house in the world.

Presenter26:26

You see, a lot of people would feel fearful about that. You know, a lot of talk right now, of course, about people's homes being surrounded by water and cut off, and it's the worst thing that could happen. To you, is it the best thing that could happen being cut off?

Mairi Hedderwick26:31

surrounded by water and cut off and it's the worst thing that could happen.

Mairi Hedderwick26:36

Yeah, I like when nature and the elements can dictate. I feel very much part of it. I love storms. Do you? It's the kind of edge to life.

Presenter26:46

You have said that the best things in my life have happened here on call, but so have the worst. I worked out I move about every ten years. I do. So there's a sort of rolling pattern, is there?

Mairi Hedderwick26:56

Yeah. Well, there's also I mean, I just love doing up houses.

Mairi Hedderwick27:03

I actually sometimes wish, never regret, but I wish I had done interior design. Yeah, I'm afraid it's like a project, having a project. Leaving the island, going back to it. I think this is the third time being back and forth. Why did you leave the last time? Well, to be honest, it was actually a little bit of Katie Morgue's fault because I had people coming up and saying, you know, brought the children and I spent the time at the door chatting with them. And then I said I I must get on, you know, with my work. And, you know, they sat in the garden with their sandwiches and their thermoses.

Presenter27:11

Having a

Presenter27:13

Leave.

Mairi Hedderwick27:41

You know, there is a point at which when you get known

Mairi Hedderwick27:45

people have a possessive attitude. And there are lots of people in call who love Katie Morrow, but there's a lot who it's not part of their lives. They don't want that label on such a small island. It's only twelve miles long and three miles wide.

Mairi Hedderwick27:59

Two hundred people.

Presenter27:59

Do you feel settled? You're back on the mainland now in the north of Scotland. Do you feel settled?

Mairi Hedderwick28:06

I'm very lucky because I was wanted. It's kind of a granny's needed at

Presenter28:11

this stage. Plenty talk everywhere in Scotland and sometimes also in the UK right now about Scotland going off on its own. Clearly you're a proud Scott and somebody who loves Scotland more. Where do you stand on the referendum?

Mairi Hedderwick28:21

Yeah.

Mairi Hedderwick28:24

Oh, of course I think it'll be a good thing and either way it will have been a good thing, because I think it's brought a lot of soul searching about it. Oh, I'm not interested in the economics or the politics of it. It's the culture of it that really would make me very happy if we could become independent.

Presenter28:26

Do you

Presenter28:41

Let's have some more music, then, Marie had her wake. Tell me about this. We're going to your seventh disc. What is it?

Mairi Hedderwick28:46

Right. Now this is where I will burst into tears, and maybe that'll be quite good to do in the island sometimes. But it's actually a very dear friend.

Mairi Hedderwick28:57

Very ill, and I was on one of my projects away. And in the car deck, you know, I had the days of tapes, I had this playing, and I just got this strong, strong feeling and phoned up the family. I was told that the person was dying. I just always remember that feeling when I was listening to that, and I'll howl tears.

Presenter30:22

That was the third movement of Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. Two in E minor, performed by the Berlin Philharmonic, with Lauren Mazzel conducting.

Presenter30:30

You do then subscribe to the notion, Mary Hedewick, as I said in the introduction to day, that children's authors often resolve problems from their own childhood through their work. Do you think you have?

Mairi Hedderwick30:40

I think so. I think there's been a lot of uh therapy.

Mairi Hedderwick30:44

In the Katie Morgan. She's me as an adult exploring morality.

Presenter30:49

Through a children's book. You said to me earlier that you didn't want to see the Island of Coal, that it's based on labelled by Katie Mornag. What about you being labelled because you are the Katie Mournag lady?

Mairi Hedderwick31:00

The Katie Morgue. Why is it sadly? Well, you see, I want to do other things, and I have published adult books, and they are these solitary journeys. And it is the name Hederwick. Ironically, when Roy and I went our separate ways very sensibly and happily, you know, I was Crawford, Mary Crawford, and two Katie Morgs were out. And I said, look, I'm going back reverting to my, but it's such a good name, Hedderwick.

Mairi Hedderwick31:28

Mary Hedewick. So publishers wouldn't let it go. So there she is. Now Mary Hedewick is associated entirely with Katie Morgue, and I've been talking about it for years. That grandfather.

Mairi Hedderwick31:41

In the Belgian Congo. I've actually been to the mission station, you know, in a very tricky, dangerous time, backpacking with a friend through Central Africa. There is so much to be told about that story. Is that what you're working on right now? Well, as I said, I have been, I've got notes for years. I mean, my grandfather wrote several books, and it's all.

Presenter31:53

That

Presenter32:00

Do you have a tendency towards the glass half empty syndrome? Because a lot of people would say you've got this terrific character. She's given you, I I assume, a pretty good income over the years. She's delightful and enduring and she's brought so much joy. What are you complaining about? But I know, but what do I do

Mairi Hedderwick32:06

Yeah, so

Mairi Hedderwick32:14

Yeah.

Mairi Hedderwick32:19

Who next with her? Now you've got to understand I have to redraw her, her family, her house, her kitchen, her bedroom.

Presenter32:26

Yeah.

Mairi Hedderwick32:27

Yeah.

Presenter32:27

Every time I do a story. You have many grandchildren of your own now, some on the mainland that you're helping to look after, and your daughter has made her home on an island. Her children were born there and are being brought up there. For you, that must have a wonderful quality of seeing the cycle of life. I know, it's a lovely house.

Mairi Hedderwick32:38

are being brought up there for

Mairi Hedderwick32:43

I know, it's a lovely handing on because they've all learned to be part of a small community. And from their point of view, that's their home. So the very thing that I was desperately wanting to be part of as a young woman, down a second generation it's taken, but they are actually Islanders.

Presenter33:01

Most of my castaways at this point feel slightly nauseous and giddy about the fact that I'm going to cast them away to an island all on their own. You've got a look of sheer delight on your face.

Mairi Hedderwick33:10

Yeah.

Presenter33:11

You'll love it, won't you?

Mairi Hedderwick33:11

Yeah, I will. I'll love it.

Presenter33:11

Yeah.

Mairi Hedderwick33:13

I'm presuming this is a southern island. And I would have to survive. And you would, I th. Thank you.

Presenter33:19

Yeah.

Presenter33:19

Yeah.

Mairi Hedderwick33:19

Don't

Presenter33:19

Yeah.

Mairi Hedderwick33:20

About your final piece.

Presenter33:20

Back.

Mairi Hedderwick33:21

And Marie, what we're gonna eat?

Presenter33:21

Yeah.

Mairi Hedderwick33:21

Well, the final piece, it is Finnish, a Finnish composer, Rautavara, and it's called Cantus Articus because he recorded birds in the Arctic Circle. So it was a lovely meshing together of his music and the sound of the Arctic birds.

Presenter34:40

Part of Cantus Arcticus by Eino Johanni Rautavara, performed by the Rotterdam Philharmonic, conducted by Robin Ticciatti. So we come to the point where I shall give you the books now, Mari. You get to take the complete works of Shakespeare. You also get a copy of the Bible to take to the island. What's the other book of yours you're going to take along with them?

Mairi Hedderwick34:59

I want a book made from all the Ordnance Survey maps of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, because then I will go through all the walks I've done all my life in all that part of the world, and then all the other ones I'm going to do when I come back.

Mairi Hedderwick35:13

And it will be beautifully presented, I hope.

Mairi Hedderwick35:16

and bound in an actual book form.

Presenter35:18

Yeah.

Presenter35:19

You're stretching the rules, but I'm going to allow it because it sounds so wonderful. And a luxury as well.

Mairi Hedderwick35:24

Right, well this is for my younger grandchildren, and they've got me into the hunger games. I know all about them.

Mairi Hedderwick35:32

And every so often when the characters are in trouble, something comes down from above, and it's some kind of thing that will help them.

Presenter35:39

Rise.

Mairi Hedderwick35:39

Uh

Presenter35:39

Uh

Mairi Hedderwick35:39

Well, I would like, once a week, coming down from above, a wonderful hot tub. Oh yes.

Presenter35:46

No problem.

Mairi Hedderwick35:47

But then I don't want to clean it, it's it'll go up into the heavens.

Presenter35:50

You can definitely have that. And finally, which one of these eight tracks would you save if you had to?

Mairi Hedderwick35:55

Yes, I would like the Cantus articus.

Presenter35:57

It's yours, Mari Heddowick. Thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you, Kirsty.

Presenter36:43

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk slash Radio4.