The elephant man
British children’s writer and illustrator David McKee tells MARION McMULLEN about his creation Elmer the Elephant’s stage show
How do you feel about Elmer moving from the page to the stage?
I ALWAYS say that your books and your characters are just like your children. You try to protect them but they’ll do things anyway that you can’t keep them out of, and they surprise you from time to time. You think, ‘Oh, I never knew he could do that’. You see one of your sons doing things with skateboards, which you’ve only seen people doing on television, and you think ‘wow!’
What was your first childhood experience of theatre?
THERE were, of course, local shows, but at the end of the war especially there were one or two things like magicians that would come and do street concerts, that was pretty close to theatre.
I remember George Formby in theatre in Plymouth in the Palace Theatre. That was quite fun. Things like that, I suppose, pantomime probably.
What are your own favourite books from your childhood? THEY’RE still my favourites now, in fact, and those are the stories of Winnie the Pooh, House at Pooh Corner and all of those stories. Especially the version read on tape by Alan Bennett.
He is absolutely incredible with all of those voices. He’s absolutely got that calm of Pooh, the nervousness of Piglet, the grumpiness of Eeyore. That was read to me when I was very young by a teacher.
Also Treasure Island, which was given to us. They would read the first part of Treasure Island to us at art class and ask us to draw the opening part. Those two books have remained very much my favourites.
Why do you think your Elmer the patchwork elephant resonates with generation after generation of readers?
I THINK it’s just an old-fashioned story with a bright image.
I always told stories. I come from a background of storytellers. I think people always just used to tell stories. Teachers used to tell stories. My mother was a storyteller and when my father came home during the war, it was recounted like a story.
When I went to the Scouts,
somebody came in and told us about all the local ghosts – those were stories. Eventually I just started telling stories. Even at college people would ask me “tell us a story!” In fact my book Two Can Toucan was a story I told in college that I eventually went back to.
Was there anything in particular about an elephant that appealed to you?
I JUST liked drawing elephants! At the time I was drawing cartoons for newspapers and every now and again an elephant would creep into one of those. There’s just something about the shape I think and, of course, it ended up decorated, as there was enough space on there to decorate!
Who inspired your style of artwork?
THERE were loads of people that influenced me. The Fauves influenced me a lot for colour and the Cubists for their various points of view. For style, Paul Klein especially, and then after Paul Klein I found Steinberg and thought he was one of the gods!
What messages do you feel children take away from Elmer and the book series?
I’VE absolutely no idea. As far as Elmer is concerned, the stories have usually got a moral feeling, a direct moral.
We talked about the book Elmer and the Hippos recently and that was absolutely a reaction to the immigration and this business of ‘why do they come?’ – because they’d rather be at home having a drink with their mates than risking life and limb going to a place where they don’t speak the language, terrible weather and the rest of it.
It’s a bit the same with the hippos. The hippos have a problem and Elmer says ‘let’s help them sort out their problem’. The bit about his differences in the original Elmer story, it’s not so much about individuality, it’s more about accepting who you are, realising who you are. I think that’s what’s great about Elmer.
I’d say that for myself I knew who my grandparents were, my parents, uncles and aunties and all of that. You can’t have any funny ideas about who you are. You can’t be pretentious. You just have to accept that’s who you are and get on with it and I think that that is the kind of thing that comes up as well.
Elmer has always been alright with the herd, and with the other animals. They were pleased to see him “good morning Elmer!” they’d say.
You can’t be pretentious. You just have to accept that’s who you are and get on with it...
David McKee on one of the messages of the Elmer books