Classic tales coming to Seven Stories

Jul 9 2008 by David Whetstone, The Journal

Classic children’s stories are coming to life at Seven Stories. David Whetstone talks to illustrator Robert Ingpen about The Wind In The Willows.

THE stories we love as children tend to stay with us into adulthood. We then read them to our own children who in turn will read them to theirs.

In this way a story becomes a classic, part of our national heritage.

Two such stories are The Wind In The Willows, published a century ago, and The House At Pooh Corner, which was published in 1928.

Both stories lie at the heart of the new exhibition at Seven Stories, the centre for children’s books, which opens to the public on Saturday.

It is called From Toad Hall to Pooh Corner and it celebrates these famous stories, by Kenneth Grahame and AA Milne respectively. It will therefore be seen by an awful lot of people, including children and those who were children a very long time ago.

As a 71-year-old great grandfather, Robert Ingpen puts himself firmly in the latter category. But with age comes experience and the Australian is acknowledged as one of the world’s finest illustrators.

To him fell the task – conceivably both a burden and an honour – of illustrating the centenary edition of Kenneth Grahame’s famous story about Mole, Ratty, Badger and the incorrigible Mr Toad.

Speaking from his home in Melbourne, Robert says the Wind In The Willows commission began a few years ago when he was asked by the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, in London, to illustrate the centenary edition of Peter Pan. A beautiful work of art, it came out in 2004, boosting the hospital’s income from the story bequeathed to them by author JM Barrie.

“This was a successful venture so it convinced a publisher in England that I worked for that they should make further books like this, re-publishing classic children’s stories,” says Robert.

But if classic stories have stood the test of time, why tinker with them – or their illustrations?

“Well, there are a few things that do change,” says Robert.

“Since The Wind In The Willows first came out, the technology involved in printing and reproduction of illustrations in books has improved to the point where you can almost do anything in any colour.

“Also, today’s children have the experience of television, video, film and all sorts of tricks that Disney and others deliver to them. All these compete with the traditional book for attention in their lives.

“As an illustrator you have to take some of the cinematic tricks used to capture the attention on film, such as certain camera angles, and translate them back into the book. If you look at some of the illustrations in The Wind In The Willows, they’re like stuff you’d expect to see in a cinema. That’s very deliberate.”

Robert also reveals his ploy of basing characters on real people. “Ratty, who is the most interesting character in The Wind in The Willows, I based on Keith Richards (of The Rolling Stones). I’ve never met him but there was something about him that I thought was appropriate.

“Other characters I based on people I know or know of. Several of my friends are convinced they are the model for Mole.”

The Seven Stories exhibition will feature Robert’s wonderful artwork for the centenary edition of The Wind In The Willows and also EH Shepard’s famous original artwork for The House At Pooh Corner.

Robert says that whereas “the great EH Shepard” was still a vital part of the success of AA Milne’s stories, no illustrator was inextricably linked to the Kenneth Grahame story. Hence this new edition.

Robert, who has worked as a freelance illustrator and designer since 1968, says: “The Wind In The Willows is one of the great stories that I remember from when I was very young, and the same goes for Peter Pan and an Australian story called The Magic Pudding.

“Stories that have this great enduring value to children are classics of literature. That does make the job of getting them across to a new generation of modern children through pictures quite a considerable challenge. It is something you do take very, very seriously.

“I certainly haven’t tried to make the characters contemporary with the modern day, as Disney have done, although Badger at one stage wears a rugby jumper with a big ‘B’ on it. I’ve kept the characters in what I hope is a somewhat timeless mode.”

Robert says his aim was always to serve the narrative but that isn’t to say the illustrations don’t perform a valuable role. “A child who is going to read the story as a result of being amused and entertained by the pictures is one who’s going to learn more about what the story has to say.”

Robert has six grandchildren and two great grandchildren and explains that each of them gets a book dedicated to them as a “birth book”.

“The Wind In The Willows is dedicated to one of our grandchildren (three-year-old Niki Matta) who lives in Cardiff. He got this book on his birthday.”

Now engrossed in a planned series of re-issued classics, Robert is at work on A Christmas Carol which is to be followed by Alice In Wonderland. A tricky one this, he explains, since many of the things which happen in Lewis Carroll’s tale could, in the modern world, be linked to substance abuse.

From Toad Hall to Pooh Corner, which will also feature models of Toad’s famous “poop poop” motor car, Badger’s kitchen and the Wild Wood, opens on Saturday with lots of related activities. For details visit www.sevenstories.org.uk

Going on show and for sale

ILLUSTRATIONS of Rupert the Bear, dating from 1992-5, will be on show and for sale throughout August at Newby Hall & Gardens, Ripon, North Yorkshire.

They are by Ray Mutimer, who illustrated 312 picture strips, stories and activity pages in the Rupert magazine, published by Marvel UK. Ray, who lives in Knaresborough, also illustrated the Postman Pat stories.

The exhibition will be open daily from 11am to 5pm and normal admission to Newby Hall will apply. For details visit www.newbyhall.com or tel: 0845 450-4068