Scottish Book Trust Project Name



Date: 24th November 2013

Author/Interview subject: Mairi Hedderwick (MH)

Interviewed by: Janice Forsyth (JF)

Other speakers: Audience (Aud), Boy in audience (Boy), Girl in audience (Girl)

JF Hello there, I am Janice Forsyth. A very warm welcome to Authors Live organised by the Scottish Book Trust in partnership with BBC Scotland, and for the second time Authors Live is delighted to be popping up within the BBC’s Commonwealth Class website, and that’s been set up to allow children from right across the Commonwealth to share learning resources and to enjoy discussion and debate with schools in the UK. What a great idea it is, and it’s all part of the build-up, the very exciting build-up to the Commonwealth Games, which will be happening here in Glasgow next year. Now the debate running today is all about island life, which I am sure a lot of you will know about, and the exciting thing is, if you do and you want to get involved in that debate and discussion, you can. It’s so great. You can do that right now. All you have to do is send any thoughts, any points you would like to make to join in the discussion about island living, anything you can imagine, to this email address, which is commonwealthclass@bbc.co.uk. That’s easy to remember, isn’t it? commonwealthclass@bbc.co.uk and we’d love to hear from you.

Now the other cool thing is that by joining up with Commonwealth Class, we’re able to webcast this Authors Live to schools all over the world. I can’t see you, but you can see me. Hi! It’s lovely to have you here. Now would you like to meet our people who are here? Oh, I tell you what, before we do that, I’m going to keep you in suspense a little bit longer, because I know some schools out there, I’m going to say hello to you. Fordyce Primary, hello! It’s almost like my name, Forsyth, so I really like you. I also love Strachur Primary, lovely part of the world Strachur, hello! And Uig Primary, another beautiful part of Scotland, hello, Uig Primary! And indeed I’m not going to leave any of the rest of you out, hello to everyone watching across the globe. It’s so lovely to have you here.

So I mentioned them earlier. I’m not going to keep you in suspense any longer. Would you like to see the real live human beings who are here in the audience?

Aud: Yes.

JF: Yes? They’re lovely. They want to see you too. So wave across the world, and you wave here, from Stenhousemuir Primary and Glasgow Academy, wave to the cameras, wave. Yes, you can see each other. That’s so good. You’ve made thousands and thousands and thousands of new friends across the world. They’re cute, aren’t they? They are lovely.

So that’s it. We’ve got a big Commonwealth wave thing going on there. Now time to meet our author today. I thought I was excited earlier. I’m getting very excited now. She is somebody who knows all about island living,. She has entranced children for over 30 years, with her most famous character, who brilliantly has just landed on television, so are you ready to give a huge Authors Live welcome to her? I want to hear you guys too, wherever you are across the world and all of our people here right now, huge cheering and applause from right across the Commonwealth and here, to the author and illustrator of the Katie Morag stories, Mairi Hedderwick! Yes!

MH: Hello, hello, hello.

JF: Welcome! Welcome.

MH: Thank you.

JF: Mairi Hedderwick! Have a seat.

MH: Thank you.

JF: Have a seat. Yes. Chairs and everything, for our lovely author. How are you?

MH: I’m very well, thank you.

JF: And obviously there are lots of people watching across the world, but is it nice to see your readers here in the flesh?

MH: Of course, and don’t they look so neat and tidy and they’ve got lovely smiley faces. I like that. Yes.

JF: And there’ll be lots more opportunities to smile over the next wee while. We are going to be talking about your most famous character. I mean, I absolutely… Do you like Katie Morag?

Aud: Yes.

JF: Do you like Katie Morag? She’s so lovely. She’s so appealing, and you just open up a Katie Morag book and you enter that world, but you have to be quite clever to do that, so I need to find out did you always, when you were a little girl, did you think, right, I want to write books and I want to illustrate them?

MH: No, when I was a little girl, I always wanted to draw pictures, and then I went to secondary school after primary of course, and then after that I went to Edinburgh College of Art, and I did nothing but drawing and painting for four years, so obviously my drawing and painting got better and better, and then I got my first job, and that was illustrating stories for other writers, because there are some writers who can’t draw and paint. Roald Dahl, he wrote fantastic stories, but he had to get his friend, Quentin Blake, to do the illustrations, so that was the job. I would get a writer’s script, their manuscript, and I would read the story and I would see the pictures in my head, and then I would do the illustrations for that story. Then one day somebody said, why don’t you write your own story, Mairi? And I thought, okay, and I was told it had to be for your age group, and I thought, well, it will be a little girl, because I know everything there is to know about little girls. I don’t know everything there is to know about boys. So that’s where I invented the little girl called Katie Morag. And that’s where she started.

JF: Wow. And we love her. What other books have you written?

MH: Well, I’ve done other books, ‘A Walk with Grannie’, and ‘The Utterly Otterleys’ and I do grownup books, but all the books that I do always have illustrations in them because I think a book with illustrations is really special.

JF: And lots of people we know, maybe mums and dads, and other grownups that we know, they go off and maybe do a job, and then they come up and they’re not doing that job any longer, but with you, with your job, especially of drawing and illustrating, do you draw and sketch and illustrate when you’re not preparing a book?

MH: Oh, well, Janice, I have to be very honest about that, because no, not really, because it’s my job to write and to illustrate, so when I’ve got any free time, I go off for big long walks. That’s what I do. But I know some people do love drawing and painting all the time, but I like a break from it, and then when I come back and I’ve got a job to do, and I’m all fresh in my head, and I see the pictures in my head, and I think I do it better.

JF: But you say there that you like to go for a walk, so I’m imagining that you’re going for a walk at home. You must tell us where you live, because where you live must feed back into what you do and provide you with wonderful ideas for stories.

MH: Well, the island of Coll, which is about two and three quarter hours in a big boat leaving Oban will take you there, and in fact that’s the source material for Katie Morag’s Isle of Struay, and if you went to the island of Coll you would see the row of houses just as they are in the books. You’d see them on the island and you’d see Grannie Island’s house on the other side of the bay, so the books for Katie Morag are always loosely based on the island of Coll, but then that’s the great thing about being an author. You can make up bits that aren’t real or true and some of the illustrations on the Isle of Struay, well, heavens, there are great mountains and there are no mountains on the island of Coll, and there’s another island called Colonsay, and I’ve used some of the names from the beaches that they have there. So remember that, authors can pick and choose the things that they want to tell in the story, real bits and made-up bits.

JF: And I’m sure a lot of the children who are here with us right now, Mairi, and watching wherever you are across the world, it’s interesting, isn’t it, you can just go for a walk in the park or you can go to the shops with somebody, or anything you’re doing, and it might give you a wee idea for a story or you might see something and think, hmm, that person’s got an interesting face, I might draw that person. Endless possibilities.

Now don’t forget that you can join in with us today on Authors Live by getting in touch. Remember we’re talking about, and thinking about, island life, and how interesting to think about the islands across the world where some of the children might be living and listening to this. So don’t forget, we’ve got the Commonwealth Class discussion board and we need you to be part of that to bring it to life, so we really looking forward to hearing your thoughts about island life. So if you have a question, you might want to pose a question to Mairi, what a great opportunity you have, or you’ve got a wee story yourself, please get in touch. You can email us at commonwealthclass@bbc.co.uk.

So we’ve found out a wee bit about Katie Morag and how she began. I’ve got some Katie Morag facts for you.

MH: Have you?

JF: I have. Here we go.

MH: Tell me.

JF: They’re very impressive. The first book, ‘Katie Morag Delivers the Mail’, was published in 1984. I can’t believe it. That’s a long time ago, isn’t it? Long before any of you were born, long before any of you were born out there too. So even though she doesn’t look it, Katie will be, what age next year?

MH: Well, I always say she’s 33 because it took me four years. I made up the story, that first story, and it took four years sending the illustrations and the words to a publisher because we authors, we don’t make the books. We have to get a publisher to produce them for us, and a publisher is a bit like a bossy teacher. A publisher says whether your work is good enough or not to go into a book so I know it took me four years before a publisher said, okay Mairi, we’ll print that book for you, and print that story.

JF: Wow. The books have been translated into lots and lots of languages, including Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, even Japanese, and of course you can also read the book in Gallic. There are over 12 Katie Morag adventures. Did you ever imagine back in those early days, in those days before you even had the book published, was it a dream to think that children might read these and love them and they would be popular across the world? Did you think about it?

MH: No, I just thought I was so lucky to be given that job, to write the story as well as the illustrations, and it was something I never dreamed it would be a series at all, and the only reason it became a series because of Grannie Island, who drives a tractor, and people noticed the book all those years ago, thinking women don’t drive tractors, but of course they do. If you live in a rural area, you live in a farm, a woman will drive a tractor, so I thought, well, how silly are people, and that’s when I thought of the other idea for ‘Katie Morag and the Two Grandmothers’, and you know Grannie Island with her dungarees and her welly boots and her tractor, I thought, this will be fun if the other grannie has got high heels and make-up and pretty clothes, and that was the start of the idea and then on the stories went.

JF: Do you love the grannies?

Aud: Yes.

JF: Do you love the grannies? Yes, you do, marvellous. Now how does it feel for you to see it come to life?

MH: Oh, it’s so exciting, and the people who made the film spent a lot of time exactly copying the illustrations in the book and that pleases me very much. It’s like, when I watch it, it’s like walking into one of my illustrations.

JF: And how amazing to see Katie Morag with her fabulous hair, love her hair. That must be one of the most exciting aspects of seeing it come to life, to see this wonderful creation of yours on screen?

MH: Oh yes, it’s very special, very special.

JF: Were you involved at all in the making of the programme?

MH: Yes, I was and I thought no, I mean, it’s not my medium, it’s not what I’m used to. I don’t know how to make films. I only know how to do books, but the film-makers asked me to come, and it was filmed in Lewis, most of it, and they asked my grandchildren too, and in the story of Granma Mainland’s wedding, which will be in the next series after Christmas, there’s a ceilidh in the village hall for the wedding of course, and you’ll see three of my granddaughters, my younger grandchildren, they’re actually in it with their best frocks on, and they’re guests at the wedding.

JF: Now one of the things I love about the books, I mean I love everything about the books, but you can see it in the television show, the map. Did you draw the map?

MH: Yes, I made that map up because I told you before it’s mostly based on the island of Coll and if you look at the map of Coll, it’s a long thin fish shape, and it wouldn’t look good on a page, so I made the island look more round, more sort of square round edged island, so it’s a total invention and of course I called it the Isle of Struay.

JF: And I wonder, do you use the map if you’re planning a new story, you imagine you’ve got your map, and you’ve got all the different places on it, do you use that if you’re planning what’s going to happen in a story?

MH: Oh, yes, because I made the map up 30 years ago, and I created all the things on the map, so now I can look at it and think, wait a minute, Katie Morag could have an adventure there, up in the big high mountains, and then over at the other side where the rabbit dunes are, so all these things are on the map, and I love looking at maps, so that is good for me to get another idea.

JF: Well, we talked earlier on about the grannies, didn’t we? We love the grannies, don’t we? So who are the two grannies? We’ve got Granma Mainland and Grannie Island. That’s right, I can hear you out there too saying that. The magic of television and broadcasting, it’s extraordinary. They’re very different as Mairi said, but Katie Morag of course loves them both, and you mentioned your granddaughters so clearly you are a grannie yourself, so which one are you then, Mainland or Island?

MH: Well, I’m a bit of both because long ago we used to have a croft with sheep and cows and a tractor, and I drove it, so I’m Grannie Island sometimes, and then I’m Granma Mainland when I come to the big city of Glasgow.

JF: So it’s the best of both worlds?

MH: Yes.

JF: She does smell nice today, I can tell you that. And she’s good at driving tractors too. Are you getting more ideas then for stories all the time? Are you continually thinking about it and developing it?

MH: Och, yes, any little thing that could happen will give you an idea. I mean being here today, I might think, oh wait a minute, will I tell a story about Katie Morag being on television, and I might think who will watch her, and I might think of all of you, and the story could be about one of you saying, oh, I’m a better actress than Katie Morag. Oh, that’s a beginning of a story.

JF: And what about your own grandchildren now? Do you look to them and get ideas?

MH: Well, yes, I mean the youngest is eight and the oldest is 23, so there’s quite a range, but Elizabeth is the youngest one, so things that she tells me that happen in school, she’s in Primary Four, so these things I keep remembering and hold them here.

JF: And what about Katie Morag herself? There must be a lot of you in her. Were you a wee bit like her?

MH: Well, yes. When I got that chance to write, I told you it had to be about a wee girl, because I know all about wee girls, and I always wanted red hair when I was a wee girl, and I didn’t. I had fair hair. So that was great. I thought, right, I’ll make my little character have red hair and I always wore my wellies, because I was lazy. I hated doing the buckles, and the laces in my shoes, and there was no Velcro in those days. If you wear wellies, you’re the first out to play, because you slip your feet into your wellies and off you go. And then when you’re called in for your tea, you slip your wellies off and you’re first up at the table, so isn’t that interesting? Katie Morag wears wellies.

JF: And she also enjoys dancing. She’s interested in all sorts of things, also Pooh sticks, which is great fun to do. Are you any good at Pooh sticks?

MH: Not really. I’m not really. It’s never mine that goes first through.

JF: Well, you can’t be completely talented at everything, Mairi. Did you enjoy that? Did you enjoy hearing a little bit about how the books are written?

Aud: Yes.

JF: Yes, you did and you did out there too. Thank you very much for that, Mairi. However, we’re now in for a huge treat. Would you like to hear a story?

Aud: Yes.

JF: I can’t hear you. Would you like to hear a story?

Aud: Yes.

JF: Yes, you’d like to hear a story. Well, fortunately we’ve got Mairi Hedderwick here, who… Are you happy to read a story?

MH: Yes, I am.

JF: Yes, you are going to do that. How wonderful? Well, I’m going to leave Mairi to do that, but the story she is going to read is the story of ‘Katie Morag and Tiresome Ted’, so I will leave you to do it. Applause, I think!

MH: Thank you, Janice. Yes, ‘Katie Morag and the Tiresome Ted’ is my favourite story, because I know what it’s like to have bad moods, and I was in a bad mood one day when the publisher phoned up and said, Mairi, come on you haven’t done a Katie Morag for a while, come on, come up with an idea, and I looked at my face in the mirror because the phone was beside the mirror, and it was a really grumpy face, because I had no ideas for a Katie Morag story, and then I looked and I thought I wonder what Katie Morag’s face would look like in a really bad mood. And then that got me going, why was she in a bad mood? Oh, I think some of you know. Can you tell us? Why is she in a bad mood?

Boy: Because she didn’t get any treats.

MH: She didn’t get any treats or presents or greetings cards, because Mr and Mrs McColl, her mum and dad, did because of the new baby. Katie Morag has got a wee brother called Liam. He’s in Primary One, and then this new baby turned up, and everybody brought presents to the new baby, so Katie Morag went in a strop. She was jealous, and she did dreadful things, just drawing attention to herself. She would slam doors when she went through them, and she would also kick the hens when she was over at Grannie Island’s, and then she did the most awful thing of all, that black mood she has, she went up to her bedroom, emptied all the toys out of the toy box, all of the felt tip pens with their tops off, all over the floor, and her ted, who always sleeps in her bed every night, if he’s can’t be found, there’s a terrible fuss, that’s who she took the bad mood out on again. She kicked him around the bedroom floor and she kicked him down the steps. She kicked him down the brae to the little jetty where the boat is moored, and she kicked him into the sea.

Tiresome Ted, she said. Horrible little girl! She went back upstairs to her bedroom, slammed the door and said she wasn’t going to have any tea. Oh dear. Grannie Island was over visiting, and Grannie Island said, listen, just ignore her. She’ll get out of her bad mood in time, and then if she gets too much of a handful, you can send her over to my wee house on the other side of the bay for a wee holiday. And so saying Grannie Island took a big basket of the new baby’s dirty clothes in the basket on the back of her tractor and went all the way round to her house.

Well, Katie Morag heard all this, and she thought, well, I’m going to keep my bad mood going. I don’t care. But you know, when she went to bed that night, she was missing somebody. Who was she missing? The Ted? Where was he?

Boy: He was in the sea.

MH: He was in the sea. A storm had got up that night and he was swept far out to sea, and his tummy was ripped open when he was bashed on the jagged rocks, and all his stuffing floated away, and then over the next set of rocks, he was bashed and one eye was torn out and it dropped to the sea bed, and then he was far out of sight. Katie Morag was tossing and turning in her bed that night. She was missing her Ted. She looked over at Liam. He was in the other bed in the bedroom, and she wanted to wake him up and say how miserable she was, but he was snoring and he was sound, sound asleep. She saw, sticking out from under his duvet cover, his hot water bottle, and his hot water bottle is shaped just like a teddy bear. The head bit is where you pour the warm water in, and then the bag bit is all brown and hairy for cuddling.

And she sneaked it out of his bed, and took it over to hers, and it did help her get to sleep.

In the morning, Mrs McColl came into the room and said, wild weather still out there, everybody, but never mind, up we get, and she pulled back Katie Morag’s duvet cover, and Katie Morag’s bed was wet. But it wasn’t Katie Morag that had wet the bed. It was the hot water bottle that had leaked in the night. Now that wasn’t fair. Mrs McColl realised she’d made a mistake but Katie Morag was in that bad mood again, and that’s when Mr McColl said, look, Katie Morag, we know you didn’t wet the bed, but listen, would you like to go over to your grannie’s for a wee holiday? Yes, said Katie Morag.

And so she walked the long way round to her grannie’s with her anorak on of course. It was windy and wet, and her rucksack with her favourite book in it, and her toothbrush, because she’s going to stay for a couple of days. And as she walked round, she was walking, slouching, looking at her feet. She was miserable. Everything was awful, and she didn’t see being washed in by the incoming tide, the Ted. A big wave brought him to the shore just below Grannie Island’s house, and he landed on the shore and a big dollop of seaweed landed on top of him and nobody knew he was there.

While Katie Morag was over at her grannie’s, she could look out Grannie’s window and see her house on the other side of the bay and she actually started to feel homesick. She wanted to be back home to get a bike backie on her mother’s bike, the post office, because you know Mrs McColl is the postmistress and Katie Morag gets backies on the bicycles every so often, and she wanted to get home for one of her dad’s terrific bakings, because he’s a great baker. And she wanted to play football with her little brother Liam, and she wanted to see how the new baby was getting on.

The storm didn’t last too long, and Katie Morag remembered after a storm, there are often all sorts of things washed up on the high tideline, and she said, Grannie, I’m going to go down and get all the bits of wood that have been washed up with the storm, because you’ll need them for your fire. And Grannie Island smiled, she said, good, that will be great. I’ve just got to finish off ironing the baby clothes for your mum. I’ll come down with the tractor and trailer once you’ve put up a big pile, and that’s what Katie did. She was feeling great because she was doing something nice for somebody else. That’s a good way to get out of a bad mood. Do something nice for somebody else.

And when she put the big pile up waiting for Grannie, she walked along the shore and she found a beautiful ball washed up, not punctured or damaged. Finders keepers! But no, I’m going to take it home and give it to Liam, my wee brother, a present from the shore. Further along she found a green glass bottle. It wasn’t smashed on the rocks. My mum collects green glass bottles. I’ll take it home and give it to her, a present from the shore. And then a bit further on, a lovely wooden box, with a lid, which was not damaged. Katie Morag thought, my dad could use that in the shop. He could display the Saturday sweeties in it, and then she found a beautiful shell, a big shell, a conch shell, the kind if you hold it to your ear, you’ll hear the sea, and it’s not a stormy sea. It’s a lovely sounding sea. I’m going to keep that for me, and then she thought, no, I’m going to take it home and I’m going to give it to the new baby, and show her how to hear the sea.

And then she saw a paw sticking up from under a pile of stinky, manky seaweed. It was Ted! She pulled him out, and she said, you’re back. Oh, but you do stink, and she got rid of all the stinky seaweed and ran up to her grannie’s and washed him in warm soapy water, and then brushed him dry. But you’re not going to be cuddly tonight, because you’ve got no stuffing, remember? His tummy had been ripped open? All the stuffing floating out to sea?

But she got some sheep’s wool and she stuffed it into his tummy. She tried to stitch it up but the stitching didn’t work very well, because Katie Morag’s not very good at sewing, but never mind, the next thing she did was this. She saw in the laundry basket one of the new baby’s babygro suits, all white and clean, and she didn’t ask. She took it out from the basket and put it on the ted, one leg down one leg, the other leg down the other, an arm and an arm, and then she poppered up over his fat cuddly sheep’s wool tummy, and nobody could see the stitching that hadn’t worked. He was going to be so cuddly in bed that night.

Well, she got a lift back of course, and she was dying to get home to give everybody their presents. Remember? The ball for Liam, the bottle for her mum, the box for her dad and the shell for the new baby, and look, she said, to everybody, I’ve got my ted back, and they said, this is lovely to see you in a good mood again, Katie Morag, lovely you’ve got your ted, but nobody said a word about the missing babygro suit from the laundry basket. You’d think Mrs McColl would say, now come on, Katie Morag, take that off the teddy bear because I need it for the new baby. It’s a brand new babygro suit, but Mrs McColl never said a word. I think she was worried that Katie Morag might go in a bad mood again if she was told to take the babygro suit off the ted. And there he is forever, sleeping in Katie Morag’s bed now.

Do you want to see him?

Aud: Yes.

MH: Are you sure?

Aud: Yes.

MH: He’s in a terrible state.

Aud: Yes.

MH: Okay, you asked for it. Ted, come on out. There he is. There he is. There’s Ted. Well, remember in the story the eye fell out, it was ripped out, and his tummy was all ripped, and what did she do to make him fat and cuddly, which he is?

Boy: Sheep’s wool.

MH: Sheep’s wool, let’s see if that’s true.

Boy: Sheep’s wool is very cuddly.

MH: Is it? Yes, you’re right. You’re right. Look, there it is, the sheep’s wool in his tummy, and it doesn’t matter with his ripped tummy the stitching didn’t hold, she just stuffs the sheep’s wool in, and then she poppers him up and he’s perfect, she says. When the big boy cousins come to stay, they say, Katie Morag, let’s kick him into the sea again, and she says, no, never, he’s absolutely wonderful. And they say, well, for goodness’ sake, get a button for his other eye, the one that’s missing. And she says no, I like him that way. I don’t care what anybody says. And when she goes to bed at night, she cuddles him and she puts her finger in his eye, and falls fast asleep.

Did you like that story?

Aud: Yes.

JF: Wasn’t that great? A huge round of applause I think. That was marvellous. Wow. What a great story, and what a cute ted. How lovely.

MH: Do you want to give him a cuddle, Janice?

JF: I’ll give him a wee cuddle, is that okay?

MH: He still smells a bit of the sea.

JF: Oh, he smells lovely. Oh, lovely Ted. Oh, I’m broadcasting, right, I’d better give him back. There you go. Thank you very much. Oh, what a privilege. How wonderful. Now we’ve got some questions, Mairi, and our first one is from somebody right here, if you can speak right into the microphone we can all hear you, thank you.

Girl: Does Katie Morag go fishing?

JF: Yes, Katie Morag does. Does Katie Morag go fishing?

MH: Yes, of course she does. She goes out with Neilly Beag in his boat and he shows her where his creels for the lobsters are, and she helps pull them up and then other times she goes out fishing for mackerel. She loves going out in Neilly Beag’s boat to fish.

JF: Would you like to go fishing? She’s not sure, but lots of other people would like to do that. Now I have some questions from schools who are watching just now, who’ve submitted their questions, and this one, Mairi, comes from Ava in Primary Two of St John Vianney Primary in Edinburgh, hello, Ava, and she says, I think we might know the answer to this question, do you like writing kids stories?

MH: Well, I do like writing them, but I have to tell you that it’s hard work writing a story and I love doing the illustrations more, and I also have things that I tell in the illustrations, so between the two of them, the writing and the illustrating, yes, I enjoy it.

JF: This is from Primary 3A and M, from Murrayfield Primary School in West Lothian, hello there, thank you very much for your question, which is where did the name Katie Morag come from?

MH: Well, when I thought up the idea of the little girl and her red hair and her welly boots and I thought, well, I’ve got to give her a name, and I told my best friend I’m going to call her Katie after you. My best friend was called Katie. But Katie’s mother was in the kitchen and Katie’s mother said, I think Morag, her name, is a much better name, and I thought, oh dear, if I call it Katie, Morag will be upset, and if I call the character Morag, Katie will be upset, so what did I do? I gave her the two names, Katie Morag.

JF: But it sounds great, doesn’t it? Katie Morag. It’s a lovely name. We can’t imagine her just being Katie now, can we? Or Morag, Katie Morag, she suits it. Thank you for that question. Here’s another one. This is from Phoebe and Mirrin Primary Three/Four of St Anne’s in Erskine, and also Joshua, Primary Three from St John’s Primary School in Port Glasgow. Hello there, thank you very much. And this question is what was the first book you had published?

MH: The first book I had published that I’d written was ‘Katie Morag Delivers the Mail’ but before that I told you that I did illustrations, so the first one that was illustrated was called ‘The Old Woman Who Lived in a Vinegar Bottle.’

JF: That’s not a very nice place to live, is it? Well, maybe it is. Here’s a great question which I think is from Joe at Banff Primary, hello, Banff Primary. I wonder if you will know the answer to this question, Mairi. How many books have you signed?

MH: How many books have I signed? Oh gosh, thousands, thousands. I mean I’ve never counted. Sometimes my hand gets a bit sore but I don’t mind. it’s a lovely thing to do. It makes a book special, when you sign it for somebody.

JF: Thank you very much. We’ve got a question from Tobermory Primary School, another island, you know a lot about island life, don’t you? Hi, on the island of Mull, and Corinne in P3 says, Mairi Hedderwick, why did you move to Coll? Why not Mull?

MH: Well, I’m sorry, but it is the first island I went to, and it was a student job, and I was working as a mother’s help on the island of Coll. The advertisement was in the Glasgow Herald, not the Oban Times, it was the Glasgow Herald, and I thought I want to go there. That would be a great job, so unfortunately nobody advertised for a mother’s help on Mull.

JF: Very, very good answer. Calderwood Primary in Rutherglen have been in touch, again hi! Having a good time listening? Lovely to have you along. They’re lovely P1 and P2 class have started a topic about the Scottish islands and they’ve been exploring them through Katie Morag’s island stories. What great fun school is for you. What made you want to include some Scots words in your stories?

MH: Well, I love Scotland and I always use Scottish words. My mother, I was brought up in Gourock and she was always using Scottish words, and I picked them up and I like to keep them going, so that’s why I always have them in the books.

JF: How does being a storyteller make you feel?

MH: How do I feel being a storyteller? Well, it’s lovely when I see children, your faces today are absolutely fantastic, because I’m telling the story and watching your faces, and when I see your responses that makes it really good.

JF: We have a question here from Primary Two/Three at Cradlehall Primary School in Inverness, thanks for watching. Great one here which is, do you have any tips on how to become an author?

MH: Yes, read. You’ll never be an author if you don’t read, because when you’re reading books, you’re actually learning how that author wrote the story and the things that happened and why did they decide to tell the story that way. That is the way to really get into writing, and when you read your books, you find out the ones that are your favourite ones and then you have a try, you should try writing a Katie Morag story, because you know all about her and you can use the books to give you an idea, a new, completely new Katie Morag idea.

JF: What a brilliant thought. We have to leave it there, but what a great idea. Keep reading, that’s what these sessions are all about and look to Katie Morag for some ideas for your own writing. Thank you very much indeed, and thank you for all your brilliant questions. You can continue to put questions to Mairi, because she’s heading off from here to do a live question and answer session online through the Commonwealth Class website, the email commonwealthclass@bbc.co.uk. You can get your questions in right now. And don’t forget you can watch all our previous authors live sessions online, and download the free learning resources at the Scottish Book Trust website authorslive. As you know, Authors Live is organised by the Scottish Book Trust in conjunction with BBC Scotland Learning and Creative Scotland. That’s just about it for today but we will be back on Thursday 23 January in the New Year, eleven o’clock in the morning with our first ever event for our Gallic speakers, featuring Catriona Lexy Campbell and the shortlisted books for the Scottish Children’s Book Awards, but before we go, I think we have to have one last huge round of applause, massive cheering, feel the love for Mairi Hedderwick.

MH: Thank you.

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