Jacky Daydream (30 page)

WHENEVER I GIVE
talks about my books children ask me all sorts of questions at the end. They ask me which is my favourite out of all my titles. I generally choose
The Illustrated Mum
because I tried particularly hard with that book and felt so sorry for poor little Dolphin. They ask how many books I’ve published and I say truthfully that I’ve lost count but over ninety now.

They ask how long it takes me to write a book and I ask them how long they think it takes. Sometimes the younger ones suggest it might take two or three days, or maybe a week, because that’s how long it takes them to read one of my books. I so wish it really did just take a few days! It takes me at least six months to write a full-length book, and I’m actually a quick writer. I don’t sit at my desk and write all day though – I’d find that incredibly boring and exhausting. I like to lead a busy and exciting life rushing round all over the place, going to bookshops and libraries and festivals to give talks, travelling to London to meet my agent and publishers, going to all sorts of committee meetings and charity events. I always take a notebook in my bag and when I’m in the back
of
a car or on a train I scribble away at the next bit of my story. It takes thirty minutes to travel on the train from Kingston to London. On a good day I can manage four or five hundred words by the time the train is drawing into Waterloo station. Then if I’m not too tired after my book-signing or meeting I can write another few hundred words on the way home. I get so lost in my imaginary world that I jump if someone sits next to me and says hello.

I spend a lot of time thinking about my story and wondering what’s going to happen next. The moment my alarm goes off in the morning I have a little sleepy ponder about my book. Then I go for a swim and as I thrash backwards and forwards in the pool I’m still thinking about my characters and the twists and turns of the plot. Sometimes I get so absorbed I lose count of how many lengths I’ve done, which is annoying, because I like to do forty nowadays, and if I don’t know the exact amount I feel I’ve cheated! I think about my novel on my way home, I make it up inside my head as I trudge round Sainsbury’s and Marks and Spencer’s, getting so absorbed that I frequently walk straight past friends without saying hello. I think about my story while I’m having lunch and supper, and always when I go to sleep so my characters drift in and out of my dreams.

Children often ask where I get my ideas from. I never quite know how to reply because I’m not really sure. I can’t make an idea happen. I just have to keep my eyes open and my mind receptive. Sometimes I’m literally presented with my characters. I was on holiday in New York with my daughter Emma and we’d had a very busy day going round the Metropolitan
Museum
and we’d also done a lot of shopping, so we needed to sit down somewhere. We went to Central Park and flopped on the grass, eating ice-creams. Central Park is always full of interesting people. We watched a very unusual arty looking young woman sauntering along. She had many intricate tattoos on her arms and legs, even on her neck. There were two tiny girls with her, in rather ragged dressing-up clothes, tottering in borrowed high-heeled sandals. When they were out of earshot Emma said to me, ‘Don’t they look like the sort of family you’d write about in one of your books!’ I made a note about them there and then in my diary – and not long after, I started
The Illustrated Mum
.

Mostly though, I make up my characters from scratch, playing with them in my head the way I used to play with my dolls when I was little. Children don’t always believe this though. The question I’m always asked is, ‘Do you base your characters on yourself and your own personal experience?’

I’ve always said no, I make everything up. Think of all the very sad things that happen to all the girls in my books. If they’d actually all happened to me, I’d have had the most tragic childhood ever! I decided it might be a good idea to write my own story just to set the record straight. I knew right from the start I didn’t want to write a memoir for adults. I write for children and so I wanted my autobiography to be for children too.

I started looking through the family photo album and trying to remember way back into the past. I began writing
Jacky Daydream
. It was a little strange at first writing about myself, and I had to be careful to stick to the true facts and not make
anything
up. I’m so used to storytelling that this was quite difficult! Still, I raced through the book and found it great fun to write.

When I’d finished I gave it to my daughter Emma to read. I wanted to make sure she approved. After all, I was writing the story of her family too. It was a great relief when she said she loved the book and didn’t want me to change anything. I didn’t show it to anyone else before sending it off to my publishers. Harry died long ago. Biddy is still very much alive – but I wasn’t at all sure what she’d make of
Jacky Daydream
! She’s never read any of my books so far, so I decided she probably didn’t want to read this one either. I did tell her I was writing about my childhood but she didn’t seem at all interested. However, when
Jacky Daydream
came out there was quite a lot of publicity about it, and several of my mum’s friends read the book. When Biddy went in to her local over-sixties club one of these friends was there. ‘Hello there, Biddy! We’ve been reading about you. Are you still seeing Uncle Ron?!’ Biddy was outraged. She rang me up immediately and was very cross indeed. I don’t suppose I blame her. I gave her a special copy of
Jacky Daydream
and she had a quick flick through but I don’t think she’s read it properly. Maybe it’s just as well.

Biddy quite liked the family photographs being in the book. I prefer Nick’s fantastic illustrations. I especially like the one of me in my best smocked dress pretending to be a ballet dancer. There’s a copy of my favourite Noel Streatfeild book Ballet Shoes on the floor beside me. When
Jacky Daydream
came out, my lovely publishers took me for a very special
meal
at the Connaught Hotel in London. Emma came too and my best friend Trish, and Nick of course, and we all had a wonderful time. Annie, my editor, made a lovely speech and I said something too – and there were also presents, two fantastic books. Nick gave me a book about Old Cottage dolls because they were my very favourite dolls when I was young. My publishers gave me a beautiful first edition copy of
Ballet Shoes
!

It was a thrill when
Jacky Daydream
got great reviews and went to the top of the non-fiction books charts. I had so many letters about it. There were lots and lots from children. One little boy said that it was very interesting reading about ‘olden times’! Many girls made lovely comments and said they identified with me because they loved reading and making up stories and playing imaginary games too.

I also got a surprising amount of letters from grown-ups. A lot of adults read the book because it reminded them of their own childhood and they wrote long moving letters telling me about their lives. I also got letters from people who used to know me long ago. The best letter of all was from dear Mr Townsend, my favourite teacher. I was so thrilled he’d read the book. I recognized his writing on the envelope, even after fifty years!

I have his writing on an old school report. I’ve just dug up all my old reports from Latchmere. I’ll show them to you, thought they’re not really interesting! They start when I’m in Form 2 – that’s the equivalent of year 4. I was in lovely Mrs Simon’s class, the lady who gamely dressed up as Father Christmas. There are two reports from her. I’m pleased that she’s complimentary about my writing, saying I show good written style and I’m very fluent and imaginative. But she also says my arithmetic is very good and gives me very good for PT and games! Me, the child who couldn’t add up for toffee and never once hit the ball in rounders. I think Mrs Simon must have given glowing reports on everyone. I ought to get nought out of ten for spelling now, because I see I’ve spelt her name wrong in
chapter 25
.

I can only find one report from Mr Townsend. He gives me good marks and his comments are kind, if a little terse! He said I’d worked hard, which was true – I worked my socks off to impress him.

Then we come to Mr Branson’s two reports on little Jacky Slyboots, Jacky Four Eyes, Jacky Daydream. They are astonishingly effusive! I can’t even remember him ever praising me to my face, but here he is in the December report saying I’m an exemplary member of class in all ways!

My leaving report even says I have a happy cheerful manner!

I seemed to have done surprisingly well in my arithmetic exams. I have a horrible feeling I might well have been
copying
off Marion again. I see I was third in the class. I know Julian was top and I think Robert was second.

I was brighter than I’d realized. I didn’t really excel academically at my secondary school, Coombe. I made friends with a girl called Chris on my first day there, and we’re still great friends all these years later. I don’t mention her in
Jacky Daydream
as we didn’t meet until we were eleven. However, lots of Chris’s friends who read the book have assumed she’s the Christine I was so close to in Mr Branson’s class. It’s so much less confusing if you write fiction – you’d never write about two friends with the same name! Chris asked recently if I was going to write about our teenage years. She sounded interested but a little apprehensive!