Interview

Following the immediate success of The Tale of Peter Rabbit came The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin and The Tailor of Gloucester, which had also started out as picture letters to the Moore children.

Working with her editor Norman Warne, Beatrix published 23 books in all until after the First World War, when her energies were increasingly directed toward her farming, sheepbreeding and land conservation.

She continued to write and illustrate, and – revealing an entrepreneurial streak well ahead of her time – to design spin-off merchandise based on her children’s books. She created the first Peter Rabbit doll in 1903, making him the world’s oldest licensed literary character, and went on to explore other merchandise options, including tea sets and bedroom slippers.

She also invented a Peter Rabbit board game for two players in 1904.

Like JK Rowling more than a century later, she felt passionately that all merchandise should remain faithful to her original book illustrations and be of the highest quality.

While working with Norman Warne, romance blossomed and the couple were engaged in 1905, despite her parents’ opposition to the proposal as her fiancé was “in trade”. However, in a cruel blow of fate, he died of leukaemia just a month later.

Writing proved to be so much more than a hobby for Beatrix and she once reflected: “I cannot rest, I must draw, however poor the result, and when I have a bad time come over me it is a stronger desire than ever.”

Such is their timeless appeal that her stories have been retold in song, film, ballet and animation, and her life depicted in a feature film and television film.

Earlier this year a special 50 pence coin featuring Peter Rabbit was struck by the Royal Mint.

However, while she is best known today for her children’s books – one book is sold somewhere in the world every 15 seconds – she was also a keen natural scientist and conservationist.

In her teens she became interested in nearly every branch of natural science, painting her specimens with increasing skill.

By the 1890s her scientific interests focused on mycology, the study of fungi and here too Perthshire was to play an important role. Her interest deepened after meeting Charles McIntosh, a rather shy and retiring naturalist and amateur mycologist (who has also been the village postman) during a summer holiday in Dunkeld in 1892.

Beatrix wrote in her journal at the time: “I asked him to sit down, his head being somewhere in the chandelier. I would not make fun of him for worlds, but he reminded me so much of a damaged lamppost...

“He was certainly pleased with my drawings...when we discussed funguses he became quite excited and spoke with quite poetical feeling about their exquisite colours.”

Charlie helped improve the accuracy of her illustrations, taught

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