Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Illustrator of more than a hundred children's books, known for his violently colourful, macabre style and pioneering pop-up book The Haunted House.
On the island
Eight records
Eleanor RigbyFavourite
presumably you know the other castaways are all on tiny little islands dotted round the ocean and they're all alone and so in a way although we are alone ... We're not alone because there's so many of us, and so I thought this was appropriate
Jerzy Semkow & Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra
it's a polonaise, which is the Polish dance, and it's the polonaise in praise of Warsaw, which is my native city where I was born.
Rivedrai le foreste imbalsamate (from Aida)
Birgit Nilsson & Franco Corelli
I suppose it was something to do with being away from your the land of your birth, of your childhood, you know, and going back. Perhaps that's why it has such a powerful resonance to me. But I think it's also a very beautiful duet.
The London Symphony Orchestra & Chorus
when I came to London, gradually it dawned on me. So, oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clements. Well, St. Clements is in the Strand. It is more or less opposite my publisher, Penguin's office. It is the Air Force Church. And my partner was trained as a air fighter pilot in the RAF.
Lata Mangeshkar & Amirbai Karnataki
my great friend Dilipa Dhaka, who was from Bombay ... used to sing this pop song over and over and over again until one day we we had Mrs. Um Mrs. Stewart, who's our wonderful landlady, and I remember hearing her coming up the stairs with the breakfast singing this song.
Now, what David does as his hobby is he plays the cello, and he plays that on the ground floor of our house, and I'm on the top floor in the studio ... And some of the music, especially the the lower the bass notes, come up the chimney ... and I can hear it. And this is one of the pieces that he plays, which which I like very much.
this is the river. You see, what what you can find by the river in Paris,'cause I worked in Paris, on uh Disneyland Paris ... and this is a a very old song that I remember from my youth, and it's What You Can Find Under the Bridge.
it's the Nuktimittis, the last song of the last service of the day, and it's a song of resignation, if you like, and being prepared for the final going to sleep.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:08Meg [from the Meg and Mog books] was inspired by a real person, is that right?
I think she was. Where we lived during the war was was in the Reich ... And so there was this poor lady, our neighbour's wife, who was had this task of making me drink this awful milk. And she hit on this solution where she'd start on a one of these gruesome stories and then stop and say, Drink your milk ... And the heroine of the terrible stories was always Baba Yaga, the the terrifying witch who flies about and eats children and so on. And I think that Meg is a kind of she's uh whatever the word is when you get rid of of some childish terror by by sort of replaying it.
Presenter asks
2:36Do you think it's fine for children to be petrified?
I don't know that my pictures are that petrifying ... I suppose children like to ... I mean, what was nice about being frightened was that I was in a safe place. If you're in bed and your father or your mother reading you a story, you can be as petrified as you like because you know you're safe. But then, of course, when we went to Warsaw in'forty-four and then the war caught up with us, and then we saw action, and then that was pretty scary, and I think that those stories then would be, you know, terrifying.
Presenter asks
7:43At the point at which your father had to disappear, to go underground, was that explained to you at the time?
The keepsakes
The luxury
notebooks and Pentel sign pens
I have these notebooks and I always draw ... on the tube, on the bus, everywhere. And so I would like to have a sort of large supply, a crate of those. A limitless supply and uh these are the pens I always use the Pentel sign pens.
No, it wasn't explained. He just he just disappeared. It was very upsetting ... And he just went and and didn't come back and and he sent me a little toy train. And I I remember being very upset and I unwrapped this little brown paper parcel and I said, I don't want to train, I want my dad So that was that was very sad.
Presenter asks
14:43Is there part of you that still feels like the immigrant?
I didn't know what the answer to that question was, but then I heard this poem. And it is by Kipling. And it's about a Roman centurion who's uh served in Britannia for um many years ... And he says uh command me not to go ... Well, I suppose whereas losing, you know, my first country, it was long ago and far away and so on. The concept of losing this one is so utterly appalling and terrifying that I suppose that's what upsets me.
Presenter asks
19:20Why did you make the choice of going from doing normal illustration to these much more intricate [silhouette] things?
Well, what happened was the first book I was offered that was in the in the sixties and it was a some Joan Aikin stories ... I had to do one sample picture to see if I got the job. And I did a picture of a northern city, you know, in the snow. And I thought the city was good, the sky was good, the snow was good, everything was good, except the figures. And I thought, oh, there they won't do. I'll never get this job. So at the last moment ... I thought, right, I'll black them in. So I blacked the figures in. They've got the job.
Presenter asks
27:35When are you most artistically productive? Is it the melancholia or is it the moments of light and brightness?
I think the melancholy is the best. Yes. Because I've lived with it for so long. And I know that it can be controlled ... it's actually, if you like, it's a gift and and I think the whole idea of everybody having to be the same is perhaps not a good idea. You know, it's perhaps a good thing that some people should suffer that and then they're the ones who can express things perhaps slightly more graphically than the people who are on an even keel.
“I can remember sort of terrible things happening and people being killed and and so on, but I I don't remember the noise. The noise has been obliterated somehow, but it's there inside me, and so I I feel terribly unhappy with screaming and all that sort of thing.”
“Being alone, I think absolutely. Yeah, you live in an imaginary world, don't you?”
“Where I really I'm frightened is when I get the upbeats, and suddenly everything's wonderful, you know, and all that. Then I think, Hello, old friend, I know who you are I'm not going to believe you. You know, and so in a way I'm happy w with the melancholy. I prefer the melancholy.”