The Guradian did a feature on the book and you can see some of the illustrations here
Olivia has kindly shared her story of how the book came about with us below.
~Eva
The creation of 'Where my Wellies Take me'
I met Michael and Clare when we were in Brittany staying with my parents in law. We had seen some posters for a festival of young peoples books in the little port of Doelan where we sometimes visit and so the next day, after a lovely picnic on the cliffs we all went along. There was a small collection of tents pitched round the harbour with a boat ferrying people across the 30’ span of water from one side to the other. The largest tent had lots of tables with authors and illustrators signing books. It was a lovely atmosphere and quite small scale. Exactly how small became apparent when one of the organizers came up to us quite excited. She had found out that though Vincent had grown up down the road, he now lived in England.
“Have you” she asked “met the very famous English author we have here?”, ‘Er, no’ was our response. “But you must meet him, he is from England too!”…‘We are definitely not going to go and say hello because we are from England’ I said as we walked away. But after some time and a further encounter with the same lady it became apparent that it was going to be difficult to physically leave the small collection of tents until we had said ‘Hello’, or ‘Bonjour’ as it turned out to the famous English ecrivain! So it was that we ended up hovering round the ‘Famous English Author’s’ table until there was a quiet moment at which point we went up with our smallest son and said ‘we have just come to say hello because we are also from England and now we have done, we will leave you in peace’. But Michael immediately greeted us both and during introductions in English and French between us and him and his wife Clare enquired who was the ‘little man’. ‘Ah’, we said, ‘he has got a funny name, he is called Elzeard’… “after The Man Who Planted Trees, that’s my favourite book, what a good role model to have!” said Michael straight away – the first and last person to have made sense of the odd name I had bestowed on our son! When we realized we were all booked on the same ferry home Michael suggested we dine together on the boat. ‘I have got a rusty Defender’ I said by way of indentification. Michael said he would come and find us. And so the night before we sailed we packed a big picnic in the hope we would manage to rendevous as planned. Any doubts were dispelled immediately we opened the car door in the hold of the boat, as we were confronted by what I now realize is a very famous panama hat, and a big smile.
So, somewhere in the Channel we picnicked together and after Michael had offered us coffees and copious amounts of ‘Orangina In Bottles’ to my eldest son’s delight (he has an addiction which comes into it’s own on the all too rare occasions we set foot in France), he asked what I had been doing on the back deck that morning. I said I was trying to get some drawing done as I was preparing for an exhibition in my usual last minute manner. Then to my horror he asked if he could have a look. Little did I know where that would lead… it was terrible sketchbook too!
Three months later, we met up in London on the publication date of Michael’s book ‘Running Wild’ and the opening of the exhibition I had been working for and that was when Clare and Michael gave me a draft of the text for a book as well as a wad of various poems, all photocopied from different sources. I had no idea how these things work really and though nothing had been confirmed with Templar, I started work straight away, in my head at least. It was all very exciting indeed.
When I read the draft along with all the poems I found myself thinking ‘why are the poems there?’ and it seemed clear to me from the beginning that Pippa had put them there. It was her book, a holiday journal but set in real time, one day in Devon.
A further few months later I met with Mike Jolley at Templar for the first time. During the meeting he asked me ‘So how many pages do you envisage the book being?’ and I was convinced there must be someone sitting behind me, how on earth would I know? My only response was to go home and make up the book. I returned a couple of months and a trip to Devon later with a big bound brown foolscap book … which, according to everyone at Templar, looked suspiciously like “an artists sketchbook!”.
Having been given the go-ahead from Mike, it seemed that a trip to Devon was the first thing to do and true to the events in Pippa’s story it had to be the first week of May, because the May Day celebrations and the ‘Round the Island Race’ described in the book still take place in the village every year. If I missed it I would have to wait another year! So I borrowed a big scout tent from neighbours, and the family car, which I packed with everything I thought I would need for my expedition. Sketchbooks, campaign table, cooking and painting gear etc… In the absence of any campsites in the area Michael and Clare had kindly agreed for me to camp in the garden. They were heading off to Orkney just after I arrived (very sensibly as it turned out!). After two days heading up increasingly long queue’s on various motorways I arrived in Devon.
I pitched my tent and while we ate, Michael sketched some walks on an Ordnance Survey map. When I say ‘sketched’, I was to come to the conclusion in the following days that some stretches of these ‘paths’ might not have been attempted for some time, at least not without a machete…still, I was up for anything!
The next day Michael and Clare set off for the other end of the British Isles and I was introduced into village life at full throttle when the Iddesleigh Friendly Society kindly agreed to let me be an honorary member for their lunch, most of which seemed to consist of apples, in liquid fermented form. Women are, by tradition, not allowed to attend. When I later opted to help in the kitchen (where women are permitted!), I found myself wondering who came up with the idea that one day a year all the men in the village could get together to drink from 10am until late into the night, as an official ritual… But what is amazing is that Iddesleigh has (I think) one of the only two remaining Friendly Societies in the country, and it felt indeed an honour to be able to witness the annual ‘gathering’ event.
I ended up taking refuge in the Duke of York’s upstairs rooms so as to be able to record the excellent Hatherleigh Band playing outside, with the church in the background. Then the finish line of the Round the Island Race, and the presentation of trophies in the village hall. All of my first days experience in the village were to appear, months later in the last pages of the book.
Having made the decision early on to keep the book rooted in the ‘50’s, true to Clare’s childhood experiences, everything I recorded on site had to be combined with a fair amount of research into historical archives and an even greater amount of artistic license of course.
Aware that I had only a few days to complete a crash course on the intricacies of a very particular place and very special community before I traveled home again, I marched the lanes and interrupted unsuspecting locals innocently going about their business wherever possible. Fortunately however, while Michael had spent dinnertime creating new paths through the Devon countryside Clare had jotted down the names of a few people in the village I could go and meet and it was entirely down to their invaluable help that my gate-crashing of village life yielded results rather than resembling the bungling attempts of a very bad and poorly equipped member of the paparazzi.
Washing the dishes, and myself, at the water butt in the driveway was an ideal way to get a true insight into the local goings on and for the locals, actual and adopted (namely the farmer towing a trailer full of children from Nethercott House out to feed the stock in the morning and evening) to get a good look at me. It was like a home from home really except that where I live the trailers don’t carry children.
The tent, as it turned out, was a bad idea. Coming from northern parts where I live almost happily without heating, I had the deluded idea that Devon in May would be pretty much akin to the Tropics. I was wrong. Whether because I am not as good a camper as I prided myself to be, or whether it was because the spring (or summer as I had imagined by then surely!), was uncharacteristically late that year - hence the somewhat wintry looking landscapes in some of the artworks; as each precious day went by I found myself becoming less stalwart, homesick even for the chaos I had left behind at home. Having no phone and discovering that the phonebox in the village no longer accepted coins was a major blow, and then I lost my transport to the garage for several days repair. I was quite literally stranded!
But a better place to be stranded I cannot imagine. Thus it was I found myself relocating, my possessions loaded into a wheelbarrow, to a new home down the road. Later, ensconced in an armchair in Carol Taylor’s cosy parlour with a glass of Malt and the warmth of the fire and conversation, it really was like coming in from the cold. Such was the welcome Carol gave me it seemed like we had known each other for years. I will never forget the companionship of the following days, sleeping in a bed in the warm and the discovery that my very kind host was also addicted to Wallander!
So it was from such improved headquarters that I continued my explorations, several times with Carol as my guide, and piece by piece put together the walk that Clare/Pippa herself had done.
Following Clare’s advice I went to meet Joan and Charlie Weeks and Joan swiftly took over as a sort of patron saint of the stray artist, the kind that knows where to find a certain model of vintage tractor (‘that would be Owen Holwill you need to go and see’) and produces a cushion and the most beautiful tea tray when you are sat in the car park drawing the church. Joan modeled for Aunty Peggy waving Pippa off on the first page of the book, and the blue teapot is the same one that was on that tray of tea!
After a phonecall from Joan, Owen Holwill didn’t seem at all perturbed when I pitched up at their beautiful farm to study his extensive collection of Allis Chalmers, Case and Massey Fergusson tractors. When he and his wife Ivy invited me for a cup of tea I couldn’t help admiring the collection of tractor models in the glazed cupboard lined up in front of the china. Both Owen himself and some of the tractor models feature in the scene of Farmer Yelland’s kitchen.
Another person I met was Les Curtiss, Joan and Charlie’s nextdoor neighbour who again without question let me into his home and agreed to sit while I attempted a portrait. I was torn between concentrating on and capturing his bright expression and twinkling eyes and wanting to make notes as he imparted some of his endless knowledge of vegetable growing but I hope a little of both come through in the final portrait of Les, who is the model for ‘the gardener’, having for years showed young people how to garden in his work at Nethercott House.
Having traced the Round the Island route a few times, on the map and on foot, armed with my sketchbooks and ‘location’ script I was aware that there were still quite a few things missing, and I desperately needed to find the missing bits and pieces for Pippa’s story before I left for home. I was rescued when after church I had an invitation to lunch at West Park Farm, and it was when I went out for a walk that afternoon with Aldis Banbury that I found several of the things on my ‘wanted’ list. The riverbank and the great Oak Tree nearby, the bluebell woods, all of which feature on Pippa’s ride on Captain.
So when the garage had reassembled the Defender in the right order, I had no excuse to linger further and headed back for home, though after all my adventures, it felt like I was leaving a little bit of myself behind in a place that, in relatively little time, had become etched clearly on my mind.
A few months after my return from Devon and a year after I had received the first draft at the exhibition, I met up with Michael and Clare at the Philippa Pearce lecture he was doing in Newcastle. Afterwards at dinner, Michael got to see the rough for the first time. He seemed to like what I had done. Then he leant across the table. “Tell me” he asked, “are you planning to return to the village before you finish the work on the book?” ‘I don’t think so, it’s quite a long way, but why?’ “Well I just need to warn the locals” he said. ‘I could set it in Northumberland if you prefer’ I suggested. “Absolutely not!” he said.
~ Olivia Gill
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