I really enjoy writing verse, even though it can be fiendishly difficult. We work separately - he’s in London and I’m in Glasgow - but he sends me letters with lovely funny pictures on the envelopes. My real breakthrough was THE GRUFFALO, again illustrated by Axel.

Most children love acting and it’s a tremendous way to improve their reading. This prompted me to unearth some plays I’d written for a school reading group, and since then I’ve had 20 plays published. It was great to hold the book in my hand without it vanishing in the air the way the songs did.

One of my television songs, A SQUASH AND A SQUEEZE, was made into a book in 1993, with illustrations by the wonderful Axel Scheffler. I also continued to write “grown-up” songs and perform them in folk clubs and on the radio, and have recently released two CDs of these songs. “We want a song about throwing crumpled-up wrapping paper into the bin” was a typical request from the BBC. I became an expert at writing to order on such subjects as guinea pigs, window-cleaning and horrible smells. The busking led to a career in singing and songwriting, mainly for children’s television. I studied Drama and French at Bristol University, where I met Malcolm, a guitar-playing medic to whom I’m now married.īefore Malcolm and I had our three sons we used to go busking together and I would write special songs for each country the best one was in Italian about pasta. A wind-up gramophone wafted out Chopin waltzes. Mary and I were always creating imaginary characters and mimicking real ones, and I used to write shows and choreograph ballets for us. Mary and I would argue about which of us would marry him). I grew up in a tall Victorian London house with my parents, grandmother, aunt, uncle, younger sister Mary and cat Geoffrey (who was really a prince in disguise.

The gruffalo audio book