Feeding hearts and minds
by Katherine Locke

Walk into Catherine and Laurence Anholt’s Uplyme home and you are immediately struck by the couple’s warmth and generosity. They live in a converted farmhouse, set high above the sea with stunning views and enough space to feel yourself breathe. As one of the UK’s leading writer and illustrator teams, they travel all over the world (with books published in more than twenty three languages), but for Laurence nothing beats home. ‘I recently toured around Bali and Indonesia which was fantastic. When I came home the woods behind the house were full of bluebells. It was just so beautiful - there is nowhere else like it’.
The pair met at the tender age of eighteen and took the unusual step of going to Falmouth Art School together. They both trained as fine artists and Catherine went on to take a Masters at the Royal College of Art, whilst Laurence attended the Royal Academy of Art. However, it was when their own children were born that they decided to try their hand at making children’s books. ‘Our eldest daughter (who is now 20) was ill and we made our first book, literally on the kitchen table, to cheer her up.’ says Laurence. ‘Friends thought it was good enough to be published, so we sent it off to Methuen and it was accepted immediately’. It sounds like every writers dream come true, but they warn there were many subsequent rejections and years of hard work ahead.
It is obvious they work naturally well together, with Laurence writing the words for Catherine’s pictures. Her quirky illustrations are instantly recognisable and have won her great critical acclaim. There is something very gentle about her work, reminiscent of one of her own favourite children’s illustrators, Edward Ardizonne. Laurence, who has been described as ‘one of the most versatile authors writing for children today’, also writes for other illustrators, such as Tony Ross, as well as writing and illustrating his own best selling series about famous artists. Tired? You haven’t heard anything yet.
Over the past seventeen years the Anholt’s have published over ninety titles (work it out - it’s five or six titles per year, or one every two months!) and they constantly have new books in development. They tell me that when working on a new project, they talk about it for weeks, endlessly refining the original idea, ‘One of the great things about working with your partner is that it is a totally safe space, where nothing is too crazy to contemplate’, says Laurence. When they get to certain point, Catherine sketches out the characters and Laurence makes a start on the words ‘with childrens writing, the skill is all in stripping stuff out,’ he says ‘ with minimal text, it is more about editing than writing’. To illustrate the point he quotes Quentin Blake who said that for every illustration there are one hundred miles of line -’It’s like that with writing’ he says, ‘but for every line there are one hundred miles of text’.
So, on top of the ideas they work on together, Laurence’s work for other authors and constant research for the children’s art books, you wouldn’t think there was much time for anything else, but the couples latest project is very exciting indeed. They are about to open a shop with a big difference in Broad Street, Lyme Regis and it sounds like every child’s fantasy of what a shop should be. Based on the concept of a Victorian children’s theatre, there will be a fully animatronic window display, a giant book for children to climb inside and a full size tree inside the shop, ‘we have taken the ceiling out, to make the shop double height’, they tell me. Upstairs there will be a gallery selling their paintings with a bookshop downstairs. Local model maker (and children’s author in his own right), James Copplestone has been helping with some of the designs and Roger Lawrence is the engineer for the window display (you might remember his Buckingham Palace from a few years ago).
They anticipate the shop will be open by April next year and they are obviously extremely excited about it. ‘We hope it will be a real asset for Lyme Regis and something people will travel to come and see’ says Laurence ‘we want it to be something different’. Their enthusiasm is infectious and as Laurence talks at ninety miles an hour, you get a sense of how much energy and dedication is needed to produce the quantity and quality of work that they have over the past few years. However, they show no sign of slowing down and are constantly thinking of new challenges. Future projects include writing illustrated novels for teenagers, ‘our own children have been so central to our inspiration, that as they get older it has made us think about books for that age range’ they say.
As I leave the house, I am struck by the genuine passion the Anholts have for their work. There is nothing here that is jaded or cynical and it is clear they consider themselves to be extremely fortunate. ‘We love working from home and are so grateful we have had the opportunity to do so whilst our children are growing up’ they say. Lovely home, devoted couple, worldwide acclaim for their work - to quote French & Saunders ‘they’ve got it all’, but, as I drive away, I can’t help feeling that it couldn’t have happened to more deserving, or nicer, people.