The day we met author Dick King-smith
JEFFREY DAVIES reminisces about the day he met author Dick King-smith
TOP children’s author Dick King-smith OBE wrote well over a hundred best-selling children’s books. Among them The Hodgeheg, The Queen’s Nose, The Invisible Dog, Sophie’s Adventure and his best-known and much-loved book The Sheep-pig, which was turned into the massively successful Hollywood film Babe. Born in Bitton in Somerset in 1922, the former soldier, farmer and junior school teacher wrote his first book, The Fox Busters, when he was 55. He passed away in 2011.
I interviewed the celebrated author on three occasions, the last in 1998 at his home in Queen Charlton, situated between Bristol and Bath...
As a much-read children’s author, have you always been a good teller of stories, I asked a most welcoming Dick Kingsmith over morning coffee.
“I don’t know because I didn’t start until pretty late. I had been busy doing other things. I didn’t actually try writing my first children’s stories until I was in my middle 50s, so I hadn’t any form to go on,” he told me matter-of-factly.
Did he feel that he always had a book in him just waiting to be written?
“No, I didn’t. I started out as a soldier because I happened to be born at the right or wrong time of the war, depending on how you view it. I became a farmer later, which is what I always wanted to be and did that for 20 years. Then I got a temporary job as a salesman and I worked in a shoe factory. Then I trained as a teacher and taught at a village primary school in Farmborough, Somerset. And now I’m an author,” he proclaimed proudly.
A highly successful children’s author, Dick must have a clearly planned strategy for getting the words down on paper.
“Well, I ought to say first of all that I mostly write stories about animals. Talking animals at that! I also write about children and families and schools. As far as planning things go, I don’t. I just blast off into wide blue yonder and hope for the best,” he said with a warm smile.
“I’m happier when I’m writing my first sentence, my first paragraph and my first chapter if I have a title fixed in my mind. For example, if I’m writing a story about a chicken called Frank I will call it something like Funny Frank and that helps me get on with it.”
A former teacher, Dick must surely find it relatively easy to pitch a story for children?
“Yes, I do. I try to write for different age groups as well. Principally I write for seven to 11-year-olds, although recently I have written a couple of books for teenagers and hopefully adults as well.”
Being an author is a rather solitary occupation. It relies on bountiful reserves of selfdiscipline, endeavour and determination, I remarked.
“It does. But for me writing is fun. I enjoy it. One also hopes for a good report, of course. One’s not worried about money coming in. Principally I do it to amuse myself,” he confessed.
Any particular aspects of the writing process he could do without?
“There are. Like all writers I don’t like it when I get stuck, which happens to all writers all the time. There are occasions when a story goes quite wrong and it has to go in the waste paper basket. That is obviously annoying, especially if one’s spent a lot of time on it. Because I started writing when I did, I was learning a new discipline very late in life. But equally I’ve now written so many books – well over a hundred – I’ve got better at it. Whatever I’m not, there’s one thing I am. And that’s prolific.”
Does Dick instinctively know when a story he’s writing is floundering?
“Sometimes. But it’s important to get a second opinion on that. I always read a completed chapter to my wife and then listen carefully to her comments. Should there be a thumbs down then I have to think very seriously about whether I should continue with it and about what I should I do to get it back on course.”
Has he ever completely abandoned writing a book that he has been painstakingly working on?
“It happens but fairly seldomly. Occasionally, probably at the full moon or something, some of my ideas are just not working out. But not that often.”
Many – probably most – authors have a very clearly organised routine for writing. Does Dick?
“Do I have a routine? Yes. Do I have fads and froibles? No. I go to my tiny little study, which has a lovely view from the window. This means that every hour spent there consists of ten minutes writing and 50 minutes staring at what’s outside!
“As for the process of writing itself, I am computer illiterate so that idea of a word processor would be anathema to me.
“I start writing in long-hand at about ten o’clock in the morning. For about two hours. My handwriting is dreadful with awful crossings out, hieroglyphics, asterisks, circles and arrows. If I died at midday nobody would know what I’d written! But I know,” he laughed.
“Doing that two hours I’m trying to self-edit as much as I can so that when I do a further couple of hours with my index finger on my little old typewriter, I do it once because it is so laborious. So really it’s the longhand scribble and scrawl that’s got to be right first before I take the typewriter out of its case.”
Embarking on a project, does the engaging author have an optimum number of words in mind?
“It’s a bit magic, that. I usually find that chapters turn up to be about the same length. About two and a half to three and a half pages of A4. One book may lend itself to, say, ten chapters. Another more. Books especially for youngsters will be less without me willing it.”
Would he say that he was very strict with himself when beginning a new project?
“Not at all. More laid back and lazy. I’m not writing War and Peace! They’re pretty smallish sort of books that don’t take all that long to write,” he said modestly.
What about inspiration? Has any other author influenced him as far as he is aware?
“I hope the style is my own. But equally, like anybody else, I have been affected by the books that I’ve read mostly as a child. As a writer of children’s books myself, the bits that are left in my brain and what I appreciated as a child are still vivid in my memory. I am still a great admirer of Rudyard Kipling at his best. I also like Wind in the Willows and the Beatrix Potter books as well. All of my favourites from when I was young.”
The Fox Busters, Dick’s first book, was published in 1978.
“It suffered one adaptation so far in a cartoon and didn’t bear all that much resemblance to the original story. But in terms of animation it was very, very clever indeed. Brilliant.”
Which of his books has Dick enjoyed authoring most – that is if you can possibly choose just one from well over a hundred written?
“Even before the worldwide success of the film Babe it is The Sheep-pig,” he answered without hesitation.
“I still think it’s possibly the best book of its genre that I’ve written. I don’t think I can do much better than that. There are other books that I’m rather proud of as well but that will do as a reply to your question,” he said with a smile.
It must have been exciting having The Sheep-pig turned into a Hollywood film?
“Yes, it was. My agent sold the rights of the book some nine years before it ever hit the screen. That’s because the producers were working hard on the computerisation of making animals speak believably.
“I’d given up hope of it ever getting anywhere. Then they asked me if I would like to cast an eye over the making of the film. I said yes, as long as you never ask me to step on board an aeroplane because I’m frightened of them. I never heard any more from them after that.
“I never knew who was in it and never went on the set. I had absolutely no idea what they had done with the adaptation of my book.”
He continued: “When the film came out I went to the cinema to see it and had a lovely surprise. As soon as I saw the actor who was playing Farmer Hoggett [James Cromwell] I realised with great pleasure that he was the man who had been in my head for the role all those years before.”
So, pleased with the end result?
“Oh, yes. I was very pleased indeed. I hadn’t been sitting there for more than ten minutes before I realised that they had done a marvellous job. A wonderful job. However, as with all adaptations from one medium to another, there were some changes, like extra characters were added. But really they had been very faithful to my original concept. The concept that this little pig by virtue of his determination, courage and realisation that politeness pays, made a good job out of life. The filmmakers did my book proud.”
A fascinating, friendly and courteous man, I very much enjoyed my interview with Dick King-smith.
They [the producers of Babe] asked me if I would like to cast an eye over the making of the film. I said yes, as long as you never ask me to step on board an aeroplane because I’m frightened of them. I never heard any more from them after that.
Dick King-smith