Chris Riddell

Presenter0:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. For rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:42

My castaway this week is the illustrator and author Chris Riddell. Over the past 35 years, entire worlds have sprung from his fertile imagination via the nib of his pen. Of former children's laureates, he has many books to his own name, including the Goth Girl and Ottiline series, and has illustrated many more, winning the prestigious Greenaway Medal an unprecedented three times. As if all that wasn't enough, he boasts a second successful career as a political cartoonist. He's been putting politicians into dustbins and occasionally nappies for The Observer since 1995 and creating monthly cover art for the Literary Review for over 20 years. You might guess at his creative energy by taking a glance at his work, which is often highly detailed, bursting with life and personality. He says, I do think of drawing as a verb rather than a noun. I never feel when I draw that the end result is the important thing. It's the doing, the activity of drawing. I don't think I'll ever stop. Chris Riddell, welcome to Desert Island Discs.

Chris Riddell1:43

Delighted to be here.

Presenter1:44

Thank you for joining us. So, drawing is like love, then, Chris. It's a verb, not a noun. Tell me about that.

Chris Riddell1:50

Well, I

Presenter1:50

Come.

Chris Riddell1:50

Stop.

Presenter1:50

Pop

Chris Riddell1:51

Lauren, I don't know what that says about me, but one of my very earliest memories was of drawing on my father's study wall in sort of Crayola crayon, in a wax crayon, and then getting into terrible trouble when he came back and found the scribbles all over his wall. And my mum went off and got a great big pack of paper from a local paper mill, and she just fed me this paper, you know, when I needed it, you know, which was often. And now I keep a sketchbook with me at all times.

Speaker 22:00

Yeah, well

Presenter2:18

There's going to be a lot to unpack here today, Chris. I mean, we've already had, you know, drawing us a transgressive act and a need. We're going to dig into all of it.

Chris Riddell2:20

So maybe we've

Chris Riddell2:24

Dig into all of it.

Presenter2:25

So you're never without a sketchbook, then. What's the joy of drawing for you?

Chris Riddell2:30

I think it's um it's a relaxing thing. It's almost like a meditation. So I will start on a blank sheet of paper and I will draw something without thinking, and that will lead to another decision and another decision. Before I know it, I'm drawing a shipwrecked sailor in the arms of a mermaid, or I'm drawing an impossibly floating rock with a city on top of it. But one of the lovely things about a sketchbook is that it's your own personal space.

Presenter2:57

You said you hate the idea of not drawing. What happens when you can't?

Chris Riddell3:01

Well, I find a wall and start daubing on it. Um obviously I have another career as Banksy, but but don't tell anyone that.

Chris Riddell3:09

Um but no, I I think any way to make marks so give me a beach with a stick. I'll spend many happy afternoons on the desert island drawing in the sand and not really worrying if the tide comes in and washes it away. That doesn't matter. I'll have had fun drawing.

Presenter3:25

So you've brought your sketchbook with you today and you I notice have a pen in your hand. Are you going to be illustrating sketching as we go?

Chris Riddell3:33

I would love to. Music for me is a lovely accompaniment to the way I work anyway, so I'll have the radio on in my studio often, radio three, sometimes radio four, and I draw with music in the background. Music gives me images, and so some of the choices I've made have been tracks that I just love drawing to.

Presenter3:50

Well, in that case, Chris, I think we will post what you draw on Radio Four's social media accounts so that listeners can see how your tracks have inspired you. I think with that we'd better dive into the music, shall we, Chris?

Chris Riddell4:02

Absolutely. Tell us about your first choice. This is one of my favourite tracks to draw too. It's Vaughan Williams, Fantasia on the Theme of Thomas Talis. And I think I first heard this on Desert Island discs. It could have been Jenny Agata, I'm not sure. But this beautiful music came tumbling out of the radio. And subsequently, when I listened to it, I just love to draw this wonderful Arcadian landscape that the music suggests to me.

Presenter5:31

Part of Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Talis, composed by Ray Fawn Williams, performed by Symphonia of London, conducted by Sir John Barbaroli, and chosen, Chris Riddell, by Jenny Agata in 1982 when she was cast away on this programme. You'd have been listening as a young art student. But let's stay in the here and now for a little longer. Chris, you were Children's Laureate from 2015 to 2017 after Mallory Blackman, and you said at the time, I want to put the joy of creativity of drawing every day at the heart of my term as laureate. Now, we know why it's vital for you to draw, but what do you believe that drawing gives children, or indeed the rest of us?

Chris Riddell6:09

I think it's one of those wonderful creative things that one can do that doesn't really rely on technique. It's not like playing a violin. Anyone can pick up a biro, a pencil, and they can draw. And I think children have an innate grasp of that. And then it's sort of educated out of them. And after a while, they get to a certain point and they decide they can't draw. And I think that's such a shame. And I think part of my sort of remit as children's laureate was to try and push through that. I'd ask, you know, do you draw? And I'd often get people going, no, no, I don't draw. I'd say, well, could you pick up this pencil and make some marks on this paper? And they'd look at me quizzically, and then they would make an odd mark. And then I'd profess huge astonishment and delight at this mark that they'd made. I'd say, could you make another one and another one? And before long, you know, they would create a doodle of some sort. And I'd say, look, you're drawing. This is wonderful. Don't stop.

Presenter7:04

What is it that stops us? Why are we inhibited, do you think?

Chris Riddell7:07

I think we compare what we do with with things we see in the world around us. We live in a visual world, and often if we can't draw sort of perfectly our version of Homer Simpson, we give up. And I love the awkward and the inadvertent. I love drawings that aren't quite right.

Presenter7:23

You often go back to the the artwork of some of your younger readers for inspiration, don't you?

Chris Riddell7:27

Yes, I have a wall in my studio where I pin up drawings that that my readers send me, and they are so wonderfully imaginative and free. So I think it's good as an in an old cartoonist to be refreshed by seeing children's art.

Presenter7:42

What's the starting point for your books as opposed to your illustrations?

Chris Riddell7:47

I will have a sketchbook at all times, and then every so often I'll want to know the story behind something I've drawn, quite inadvertently. Is it always figurative with you, Chris? No, not always. Sometimes it can be uh a landscape, sometimes it can be just an area of shading that suggests something. Mr Munro, who is a character from my Ottiline books, he is small and hairy and comes from a bog in Norway. I didn't know this when I first drew him. He was simply a curtain of hair with two little eyes sort of looking through it. And I drew this character and then thought, now I must tell a story about him. Who is he? Where does he come from? Why does he look like that?

Presenter8:24

It's time for your second disc, Chris. What's it going to be and and why have you chosen it?

Chris Riddell8:28

This is really the backdrop to my childhood. My parents were both born in South Africa, grew up in South Africa. I was born in Cape Town. I left when I was a year old. My parents were both active in the anti-apartheid movement. And this is Cosy Siculale Africa, which always brings a lump to my throat when I hear it. I think of my parents. I think of my brother, Rick, who sadly died six, seven years ago now. And he learnt the lyrics to this. He could sing this. And so this really is for Rick and for my parents.

Presenter9:15

He's fighting me down.

Presenter9:19

Get to the single

Presenter9:28

Oh see

Speaker 29:30

See that?

Presenter9:37

Kosi Sikalele Africa, from the original soundtrack to the film Cry Freedom, conducted by George Fenton. So Chris Riddell, let's sketch out that early self-portrait then. You are an author illustrator, of course, Chris. How important was reading to you as a child?

Chris Riddell9:53

Reading was difficult at the beginning. I remember struggling. I didn't sort of start reading at the age of three. You know, I was still battling at school with reading, and I had two comrades to help me, um, Peter and Jane.

Presenter10:05

There are a series of books that teach kids how to read.

Chris Riddell10:08

Yes, and Peter and Jane had all sorts of adventures that were codified for readers like me. So 1A Peter and Jane would be playing in the garden, and book 2B they would be maybe making a wigwam and having tea with Mummy. The artwork was luminous and beautiful and I loved it. But Peter and Jane never seemed to do very interesting things. And I struggled. And then one day I went into an adjacent classroom and I found this extraordinary mythical book. It was Peter and Jane 12C. And it was the very top of the reading pyramid. And I thought, if only I can climb all the way up to 12C, I'll have done this very difficult task of learning to read. And then I need never read another book again. I'd be free. And then out of the corner of my eye, I saw another book. It was called Ackerton Sachs and the Jewel Thieves. And it had an illustrated cover by Quentin Blake. I didn't know who Quentin was at the time, but I looked at this and it was mesmerizing. And I thought, I want to know what that story is about.

Presenter11:07

Agaton Sex is a Swedish detective story, I believe.

Chris Riddell11:09

Yes, please. Yes, who has a bloodhound who's very fond of cream cakes. And I devoured this book. I didn't understand a lot of the words, but I borrowed it, took it away, loved it. And after that, Peter and Jane were dead to me. But I think I spent most of my adolescence in my bedroom painting model soldiers and doing this thing. I love sort of Red Rover tickets on red buses where you could travel all over London. And when I was meant to be doing games, I would abscond. The minute the Gamesmaster had gone off to sort of organise other things, I'd abscond and go across the river to the Tate Gallery.

Presenter11:45

Chris, it's time to go to the music. It's your third today. Why have you chosen this?

Chris Riddell11:49

Well, this is by an American singer-songwriter called Phoebe Bridges, and I was browsing YouTube and I heard her first album, which was called Stranger in the Alps, and I loved the lyrics. And then I found myself going to the Bologna Book Fair in Italy, and I was listening to this, and I was drawing, and I looked out of the window, and there were the Alps below me. And so I was drawing to Stranger in the Alps whilst flying over the Alps. And when I arrived, I just did a little post of the drawing I was doing saying, you know, who'd have thought I was flying over the Alps drawing to this? And Phoebe sent me a message on Instagram. So we connected. And then a little while later, I found myself at a large venue illustrating live while Phoebe and her band sang, which was an extraordinary experience.

Presenter12:36

I went with you up to the place you grew up in We spent a week in the court

Presenter12:47

Just long enough to hold in it with you any longer it would've got old

Presenter12:56

Singin' ace of spades when Lemmy died, but nothing's changed.

Speaker 313:00

Till it's alright

Speaker 213:06

Sleep

Presenter13:10

Phoebe Bridgers with smoke signals. So Chris Riddell, you moved around quite a lot when you were a child. That kind of disruption can be tricky for children to manage. How did it work with you? How did you manage going from school to school and friend group to friend group?

Chris Riddell13:25

My father was moved to minister in many different places and became a prison chaplain and later a chaplain in a psychiatric hospital. Each time we made these big moves across the country, my parents would gather us together, the kids together, and say, Dad's going to become a prison chaplain. We prayed about it, and this is, we feel the right thing. And we'd go, yeah, that's fine. Because there was this higher power that had ordained this. But what I learned, I think, very early on in my school career was to try and blend in. And at my secondary school, I remember my, I think it's my sort of second school report. I had good grades all the way through. There was nothing to worry about, except for this comment at the end where my teacher said, Chris is disturbingly quiet. Oh, wow.

Presenter14:12

I thought

Chris Riddell14:12

I thought I was blending in.

Presenter14:14

It's interesting that you've gone on to have such a public-facing life and role and career and your creative voice has kind of carried you all around the world for a very quiet child.

Chris Riddell14:23

Years of training, what can I tell you? As a young man, I was painfully shy, and I remember being completely mortified the first time I had to speak to my readers, who were a class of lovely Birmingham school kids, and I'd just done a book about a bear on a picnic. And in a complete panic, I illustrated the entire book in real time in front of these sorcererized kids. No, it was a very, you know, I found any sort of public speaking a real challenge. And luckily, when I first started working, that wasn't something we had to do as authors and illustrators.

Presenter14:59

So you've had to learn it in more recent years?

Chris Riddell15:00

Uh completely, yes. Um and throw myself into it.

Presenter15:04

Tell me about the job you took on before you went to art school. You were 16 and you've described it as the best job I've ever had.

Chris Riddell15:10

Oh my goodness.

Presenter15:10

Good.

Chris Riddell15:11

It was a job at my local library, and I got to do that wonderful thing of stamping books. I love doing that, asking for overdue fines, that was great. But my favourite thing was stacking the shelves, because I could get this great big trolley, load them up with books, and then disappear into the bookstacks and find a comfortable corner and read all afternoon. It was fantastic. I think I read Mervyn Peake's Gorman Gast at Coulston Library in the corner when I should have been stacking shelves.

Presenter15:43

Was that an important book for you?

Chris Riddell15:44

Hugely. Not least because I was actually living in Gormengast at the time. Up the hill.

Presenter15:51

I looked at the grounds of Crane Hill Psychiatric Hospital and it looks remarkably like one of your illustrations.

Chris Riddell15:53

That's right.

Chris Riddell15:56

It was a labyrinthine place, since closed down, but my father was the chaplain there, and we lived in the grounds. We could wander around, I made friends with many of the patients, and subsequently as a student went back to work during the summers on the wards. And it was an extraordinary place.

Presenter16:15

Do you think it's had an impact on you as an artist creatively? Do you see those experiences and those ideas in your work?

Chris Riddell16:23

I think inevitably I draw from my imagination, but I think I've always been one of those people who looks at things. Now, I see this in my daughter as well, who's also an illustrator. But Katie, when she was little, always looked at things, scrutinized things, didn't say too much, but looked at things. Now, that's what I used to do, my mother tells me. So I've always been an observer in that sense. And I suppose an experience of wandering round Cane Hill was a chance really to observe, I think, all sorts of things. And it was, undoubtedly, a very sort of gothic environment.

Presenter16:56

It's time for your next piece of music, Chris. What's it gonna be?

Chris Riddell16:59

A band that I loved as an art student. They come from Wales, they're called Young Marble Giants. And this is a track called Final Day. And the reason I chose it is it reminds me of my time as an art student in Brighton in the 80s, and also of my tutor at Brighton, the wonderful Raymond Briggs.

Presenter17:20

When the rich doll lost like the rabbits running From a lucky pot spoiled shallow cunning And the world lights up for the final day We will all be poor, having had our say.

Presenter17:49

Put a blanket up on the window pane When the baby cries all about

Presenter17:55

Young marble giants with final day. So, Chris Ruddell, that track taking you back to your art school days in Brighton. You've described deciding to pursue art as the most transgressive thing you'd ever done. Why was that?

Chris Riddell18:07

I was going to do English. That was in an academic subject. And

Chris Riddell18:12

It was this feeling of running away. You know, it felt wonderful. I felt like a rebel and going off to this wonderful, wild, exciting place called Art School.

Presenter18:22

Away from what?

Chris Riddell18:23

I suppose a future life where I would have either become an academic, possibly a very frustrated accountant, maybe something in the civil service, and instead I threw myself into this quixotic thing of being an art student.

Presenter18:37

So you started off at Epsom and then transferred to Brighton Poly, where, as you mentioned, you studied with Raymond Briggs. Tell us a bit more about life with him as a teacher.

Chris Riddell18:47

Raymond is an extraordinary artist and mentor and I think great teachers leave a trail of lives they've changed profoundly and I always remember a tutorial where he went through some of my work and he said a few salient things and then he just said marvellous, marvellous and I just floated out of the tutorial on air thinking Raymond Briggs said I was marvellous, this is extraordinary. And I remember arriving for my weekly tutorial a little bit early and there was another student in there and Raymond was doing exactly the same thing, looking through the work and then every so often saying marvellous, marvellous.

Chris Riddell19:24

And I remember thinking, I don't care, I'll take that. You know, Raymond says I'm marvelous, there's another marvellous student here, that's all right as well.

Presenter19:31

You said that Raymond Briggs was one of those people who changed lives. Did he change yours?

Chris Riddell19:36

Profoundly, I remember reading Where the Wind Blows and thinking, wow, this is something I want to do. And then seeing Raymond's studio and thinking, I want to work in a studio at the bottom of my garden one day. So Raymond was an inspiring figure. And when I got my very first commission, I went into a publisher's and I showed them my drawings. And this wonderful man called Klaus Fluge looked at my artwork and he said,

Chris Riddell20:05

I can see you draw perfectly well and I said, Yes, Raymond Briggs taught me, you know He said, Ah, yes, yes And then he said Um but where are your stories?

Chris Riddell20:14

And I thought, well, I don't have any stories. I want to illustrate, you know. And I found myself saying, in that way you do when the dog's eating your homework, I said, I've got a story, but I left it at home. He said, go back and bring in this story of yours. Bring it in to me tomorrow. And I'm speaking in this slightly weird way, because Klaus has got a wonderful German accent. And so I just felt compelled. He said, bring in this story tomorrow. And so I went home and in a blind panic wrote a story. And I didn't think I could write. That's not what I wanted to do. But I wrote a story. I brought it in the next day, showed it to Klaus. He said, This is perfectly fine. I will publish it.

Chris Riddell20:50

And I remember getting on the train to Brighton immediately afterwards and seeking out Raymond. I had left Brighton by that time and saying, What do I do now? and he just calmly and gently took me through the processes I would now need to do to illustrate this book. So he was an immense influence on me.

Presenter21:06

Chris, it's time to go to the music. What's next?

Chris Riddell21:09

Well, this is for my wife Jo. We met at Brighton Art School, and I was going through one of my reinventions, where I was deciding, instead of being painfully shy, I'd pretend to be gregarious and outgoing. Wasn't good. Jo sort of thought I was a complete idiot. But then, halfway through the second year, we found ourselves at a club together, and things seemed to go much better. And then Jo had a commission doing a mural in a rather smart flat in Kensington, in London. And I remember Valentine's night, she invited me up because she had the keys to work on the mural, the owners of the house being in the country.

Chris Riddell21:46

So she said, Would you like to come up and stay over for you know, it was Valentine's night, and so I did. I admired her mural, and then we sat on the sofa and played the records that they had in this amazing flat. And we put on this track. This was the track We Fell in Love To. It's by the wonderful Leonard Cohen and it's Suzanne.

Speaker 222:06

Suzanne. Uh Takes you down to her place near the river.

Speaker 222:14

You can hear the boats go by

Speaker 222:17

Come spend the night beside her.

Speaker 222:21

And you know that she's half crazy But that's why you wanna be there And she feeds you tea and oranges That come all the way from China And just when you mean to tell her

Speaker 222:39

But you have no love to give her, then she gets you.

Speaker 222:44

Yeah.

Presenter22:44

Leonard Cohen with Suzanne Chris Riddell. Your dream when you were studying under Raymond Briggs was to have a studio at the bottom of the garden, just like he did. And you do. You live with Joe, who's also an artist.

Speaker 222:44

Um

Chris Riddell22:57

I am living the dream.

Presenter22:58

You share a studio with your daughter as well, I think.

Chris Riddell23:00

At the moment, yes, Katie's graduated and is now working on children's books as well. Who would have thought? I don't know how that happened. Yes, I now share a studio with Katie, which is interesting. Very judgmental child. Um but uh

Presenter23:14

Does she lean over and say, not sure about that?

Chris Riddell23:14

Does she mean

Chris Riddell23:17

Well, I seek that often. It's great. Being at the bottom of the garden is a lovely thing. And so I walk out of my kitchen down the garden path. And there are trees at the bottom of my garden, so the studio itself is screened. It's an old coach house. And so I can walk down my garden path through the the the trees into my studio.

Presenter23:36

Your visual style is extremely distinctive. How long did that take to cohere?

Chris Riddell23:42

I think the thing about a style, and I say this to students, don't go looking for a style. A style should find you. It is about trying to observe and put yourself in as many different places as possible and then seeing how that informs your style. And after a while, you will find that unicorns are your thing, and you'll become the unicorn guy. I mean, it does happen.

Presenter24:03

So feed your artistic hinterland, that's important.

Chris Riddell24:06

Absolutely. And don't we live in an extraordinary age now where we have social media full of images and where we can sample and look at so many amazing things and be inspired by them?

Presenter24:17

Chris, we've got to go to the music. What's next and why?

Chris Riddell24:20

Well, this is my other career where I draw with this extraordinary machine called a visualizer in public to music. What's the attraction of doing that? I think it's listening to the music and being able to draw. I do it on my own sometimes just for fun, and sometimes I post little Instagram films. And so I do a little thing at my local folk club, which is at this amazing toy museum in Brighton. And they have folk acts who play. And I set up my screen and my visualizer and I project while bands play and I illustrate the songs as they sing. And the next track is by a wonderful folk collective called Bird in the Belly. They play beautifully. They are five, I think, in the collective, young musicians. And what really drew me to them is that they find material, sort of poems, poetry, prose, that they can then set to music. So we're going to hear a 19th-century poem all about a dandy who goes down to Brighton to take the air, and it's called Horace in Brighton.

Presenter25:25

Now fruitful autumn lifts her sunburned head The slighted puffy cumbric muslins whiten

Presenter25:34

The dry machines revisit ocean's bed

Presenter25:38

And Horace Quitzer World, the town for Brighton.

Chris Riddell25:39

Torres.

Presenter25:45

The Synth foregoes his box of turn and green

Presenter25:49

To pick up elephant shells with amphetiety

Presenter25:54

Pleasure's frail daughters trip along the steam, led by the dame the Greeks call Aphrodite. Bird in the Belly and Horace in Brighton. Chris, you've had lots of highly successful, long-running creative partnerships across your career. You've written The Edge Chronicles with Paul Stewart and you've illustrated numerous books for Neil Gaiman. How important is trust in that relationship between author and illustrator? I think it's at the heart.

Chris Riddell26:22

Of any collaboration. I think it's knowing when to intervene, when not to. And I think we talked about sort of how I believe an illustrator mustn't get in the way of words. I believe in the primacy of the text. That's where the power is. And then, as an illustrator, I've got to interpret that in a way without getting in front of it. And both with Paul and Neil, there seems to be that balance that we achieve. As an illustrator, what one mustn't do is be too prescriptive. This is the sort of art of illustration, not being overly descriptive, to try and evoke rather than describe.

Presenter26:57

You believe, too, that stories have to be spoken rather than read. Why is that?

Chris Riddell27:02

Well, I think certainly in children's books. These are books for sharing. And I think hearing a story out loud is a very particular experience. I remember taking in a text of mine to my publishers at Walker Books. I went in and gave my picture book text to my editor, a wonderful man called David Lloyd, who's a complete doyan of children's books. And David climbed up onto the table and called for quiet in the open plan office and read my story to everyone while I just shrank beneath the table in extreme embarrassment. And it taught me a really good lesson, which is I can't write my stories by candlelight in the quiet of my studio at the bottom of my garden, expecting hushed awe when they're greedy. They've got to be read out loud. They've got to sort of be communicated. So when one writes, as maybe as you draw, you need to show people. They need to see it. You need to gauge reaction from it.

Presenter27:59

Chris, we've got to go to the music again. It's your penultimate disc. Tell us about this one.

Chris Riddell28:04

This is Mozart, the adagio from Mozart's clarinet concerto in A, and it was my father's favourite piece of music. He had this wonderful parenting style, which I think I describe as benign neglect. He was never quite sure what we were up to or what we were doing, and that never seemed to matter, so we never had judgment passed on us. We were allowed to do what we felt we should do. He never expected us to conform in any sense. He was a wonderful, wonderful embodiment of this sort of Anglican approach to life.

Presenter29:37

Part of the adagio from Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A major, performed by the Liszt Ferenc Chamber Orchestra, Budapest, with Carlmann Birkesch on clarinet, conducted by Janos Roller.

Presenter29:49

Chris Riddell, I know that was your father's favourite piece of music and you played that at his funeral. We've talked a lot about the joyful creative release and potential of drawing, but do you find it just as beneficial during hard times? I mean, alongside your grief for your father, did you have a creative response to that and other losses that you've experienced in your life?

Chris Riddell30:09

Yes, I think, because I think of drawing very much and creating art often has a therapeutic value, and we know that it can help to externalise feelings and thoughts. It can make us feel mindful or calmer. And I think being able to draw something when you're feeling a certain way can allow you to release those feelings on a sort of rather banal note. When I do something ridiculous and feel rather silly about something, if I draw myself doing that exact same thing with a little caption, it makes me feel better.

Presenter30:46

Yeah.

Presenter30:47

Takes the sting out of it.

Chris Riddell30:48

It does rather, because you're illustrating your own life and being able to editorialize and say, okay, I'm now the hero of my own misfortune, so I can feel slightly better about it.

Presenter30:58

You've been the Observer's political cartoonist for 25 years, and you've described the job as weekly catharsis. What's your process, I wonder?

Chris Riddell31:06

Oh my goodness, well it stops me shouting at the radio often, not because the radio coverage isn't excellent, but because drawing a political cartoon is a way of sort of visualizing my own thoughts and ideas. And sometimes it feels good to draw Donald Trump in a nappy.

Presenter31:26

Time for your final disc, Chris Riddell. What's it gonna be?

Chris Riddell31:30

Well, this piece is perfect to actually draw whatever is in one's mind, and this is such an evocative piece. It's by Arvo Pert, the wonderful composer of sometimes of sacred music. And there's an element of the sacred about this piece. It's called Silentium, and it has this wonderful D-tuned piano that is so spooky, it's doom-laden in some senses, but there's also something very soothing and calming about it.

Presenter33:03

Part of Silentium from Tabula Razzo, composed by Alvo Pert, performed by the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, with Victoria Mouleva on violin, conducted by Pavo Javi. Chris Ruddell, it's time to cast you away then, on your desert island. How do you picture it? How would you draw it, I wonder?

Chris Riddell33:21

As a cartoonist, I mean I see it as this solitary crag with possibly a palm tree sticking up from the middle, and I'll be sitting there with some amusing placard round my neck, but I'm thinking more the tropical paradise than a Scottish crag somewhere in the the Highlands.

Speaker 233:36

Oh good.

Chris Riddell33:36

And would spend my time sort of wearing a humorous goatskin hat and sporting an even more impressive beard than I have at the moment.

Presenter33:44

Is there anything that you'd be happy to leave behind?

Chris Riddell33:46

Deadlines. I'd see this as an extended sabbatical.

Presenter33:50

We'll give you the books to take with you, of course, the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, and a third that you can choose. What would you like?

Chris Riddell33:56

I think it's got to be Alice's Adventures in Wonderland through the Looking Glass and what Alice found there. So those two, I think.

Presenter34:00

Awesome.

Presenter34:02

What I would love to do.

Chris Riddell34:03

Yeah

Chris Riddell34:04

Well, what I would like, this is where it becomes complicated, I would like every illustration that's ever been done to either version bound in.

Presenter34:11

Oh, Chris. I mean, they are so numerous. What about if we gave you the most beautiful original edition of the Tenniel?

Chris Riddell34:21

I could live with that.

Presenter34:22

Okay. We can also offer you a luxury item to make your stay more enjoyable. What would you like?

Chris Riddell34:27

Oh, that's easy. Lots and lots of sketch books. Obviously with pens to go with them, so that I can illustrate the Bible, I can illustrate the Shakespeare, and then I can move on to illustrating Alice in Wonderland all over again.

Presenter34:39

Well, I'm completely unsurprised by that request, but delighted to grant it. Finally, which of these eight tracks would you risk life and limb to save if the surf was threatening to wash them all away?

Chris Riddell34:49

It has to be Fantasia on the theme of Thomas Talis, because it'll make me homesick, it'll take me to another place, ideal track to draw to as well.

Presenter34:58

Chris Riddell, thank you very much for sharing your Desert Island discs with us.

Chris Riddell35:01

Thank you.

Presenter35:14

I so enjoyed talking to Chris and the pictures that he drew inspired by his tracks are beautiful and you'll be able to see those drawings on the Radio 4 website. There are numerous children's authors in the Desert Island Discs back catalogue including Judith Carr, Michael Rosen, Julia Donaldson, Roald Dahl and Philip Pullman. Also featured in our archive is Chris's mentor and teacher at art college Raymond Briggs and his predecessor as children's laureate Mallory Blackman. She was cast away by Kirsty Young in 2013. Kirstie asked Mallory if she'd been encouraged to write at school.

Speaker 235:48

I never got discouraged from doing it. Um and some of them were quite oh, you know, you if you like writing stories, keep going and we'll we'll kind of give you feedback. So I've always had wonderful English teachers. In class, were you encouraged to come up to the front and read them out?

Speaker 236:03

I wrote a poem when I was in my junior school called The Jungle and I remember the last two lines and it wasn't particularly good but my teacher liked it and she said, oh Mallory you can read this at parents' evening and she sort of got me to the front of the class and said okay read it out then and I stood there and I wouldn't say a word and she said well go on Mallory and I said I can't and she said well why not and I said I'm shy and everyone cracked up laughing and I thought I'm never gonna write another poem again but luckily I got over it but it was um a sort of horror story in that I love writing but I didn't want to I didn't want to share my stuff but it was the same when I started writing and I joined a ways into writing class and my tutor said to me I would never read my stuff out she'd go around the classroom and then she'd say okay and when it got to me she'd say Mallory do you want to read your work and I'd say no thank you not this week and every week it was no thank you not this week and after a term and a half she got fed up with me and just looked me in the eye and said Mallory do you want to be a writer and I said more than anything else in the world and she said well then you're gonna have to shit or get off the pot love and and I remember again everyone cracking up laughing and me feeling kind of thinking it was funny but feeling absolutely mortified but it was the best piece of advice I'd ever received in my life because it was one of those things about if you want to do something go for it.

Presenter37:18

Mallory Blackman speaking to Kirsty Young in 2013. Don't forget, there are over 2,000 editions of the programme available on BBC Sounds. Happy listening. Next time, my guest will be an actor whose career began playing a hero of children's literature, Daniel Rycliffe. Do join us then.

Speaker 337:58

Hello, it's me, Greg Jenner, the bloke from the funny history podcast You're Dead to Me. I've got good news. We're back for a second series where historians and comedians alike will join me in learning things about, well, we've got Mary Shelley coming up, we're doing Eleanor Vakitane, we're doing the history of chocolate. Find us on the BBC Sounds app or wherever you get your podcasts and you'll be able to hear Shappy Corsandi quibble with the rules from the ancient Greek Olympics. You couldn't bite anyone?

Presenter38:19

Okay.

Speaker 338:19

And you weren't supposed to gorge their eyes out.

Presenter38:21

Well, that's a silly rule.

Speaker 338:23

Search for Your Dead to Me on the BBC Sounds app.