Lauren St John: winner of the Blue Peter Book of the Year 2011

Lauren St John was born in Gatooma, Rhodesia, now Kadoma, Zimbabwe. At the age of 11 she and her family moved to Rainbow’s End farm in Gadzema, which later became the subject of Rainbow’s End: A Memoir of Childhood, War & an African Farm. After studying journalism in Harare, she relocated to England, where she was for nearly a decade golf correspondent to The Sunday Times.

She is the author of several books on sports and music, including Hardcore Troubadour: The Life & Near Death of Steve Earle; and the award-winning children’s series, The White Giraffe, Dolphin Song, The Last Leopard and The Elephant’s Tale. Her new mystery series features 11-year-old detective, Laura Marlin, who lives in St Ives, Cornwall.

Congratulations on winning Blue Peter's Book of the Year 2011!

Thank you! I’m so thrilled.

Are you a fan of Blue Peter?

Well, growing up in Zimbabwe I didn’t get to see a lot of it, but it’s such an iconic programme – such a well loved show. I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t think Blue Peter is absolutely wonderful. It’s an unbelievable honour to win this award. When my publicist told me I was literally speechless, I was completely thrilled.

You must be really pleased to win, especially for a new series. The White Giraffe has won a lot of awards as well.

And that’s been absolutely amazing as well. The White Giraffe won lots of local awards which is really lovely from a grassroots point of view, because your book has been voted for by kids. Also it means that you’re really reaching kids at a level you want to meet them. But this is the first time I’ve won a national award, I’m so pleased.

Have you come to the end of The White Giraffe series or is there more to come?

There’s one more book I’d like to do, but for now it felt like the right place to stop.

What made you decide to shift genre and setting from the adventure stories of The White Giraffe series about animal conservation in Africa to a detective story set in Cornwall in the Laura Marlin series?

I grew up on an amazing farm in Zimbabwe and I was absolutely obsessed with books, in particular with The Famous Five and The Secret Seven series. We didn’t have much money and we lived in the middle of nowhere so we didn’t get books often, so I’d often read the same book over and over again. I’ve read every single Famous Five book countless times.

I used to read about all these adventures and wished so much that I could live in England and get lost in the fog on the moors and stop at farms where farmer’s wives handed you picnic baskets with ginger beer and ham. I guess I never lost that nostalgia, they were constantly readable those books. I’ve always loved mysteries and now I’ve grown up I love thrillers.

When I was writing The White Giraffe I lived for four months in St Ives and was totally besotted with the place. When I first went there it was the tale end of winter. It was very misty and atmospheric, and at night I used to walk along the cobbled streets. It was so peaceful and spooky and I always knew it would make the perfect setting for a children’s thriller, and then the two things came together. I always wanted to write a nostalgic book about the adventures I wanted to have when I was a kid, and couldn’t think of a better setting than St Ives.

Yes it’s the perfect setting with the romance of the coast and its smugglers. It really comes through in the story.

It has that atmosphere particular to southern Cornwall. It still has that wild mysterious quality about it. You could quite believe there are smugglers out and about today. It’s a very very atmospheric place Cornwall, I absolutely love it.

Are the other books in the Laura Marlin series going to be set in St Ives?

Yes. The next one is going to be called Kidnap in the Caribbean. Essentially Laura and her uncle live in St Ives throughout the series, but in one way or another Laura and Tariq, her best friend, go on lots of adventures around the world.

I wanted to talk to you about Tariq’s story – which is one of child slavery. Is this an issue you wanted to talk about particularly or did it emerge from the character?

Well, basically I wanted to do a story about child trafficking. It’s not often considered that so many young children around the world are literally modern day slaves. We all know about sweat shop labour but there are also child slaves who work in peoples homes. I wanted to write about this, that there are also child slaves in Britain.
 
So I got a few books on modern day slavery and what I read absolutely stunned me, particularly when it came to the situation that Tariq is in, which is debt bondage. There are an estimated 10 million people in India in debt bondage and it can literally start with a few pence that people borrow for the price of a bride, borrowed from unscrupulous people like quarry masters and factory owners, and then they have to work their whole lives to pay off the money and they can never leave. I was horrified to find out that it’s actually generational. You might die breaking rocks by paying off a few pence, but your debt does not die with you, it’s passed onto your children and then their children. It’s absolutely staggering and what I realise is it goes on everywhere. Not specifically debt bondage, but modern day slavery is absolutely rife everywhere including in the UK.

The other thing I wanted to show through Tariq is equally important. Every day we make a judgment about the people we pass on the street. It’s human nature and actually everyone has their story. How about the shy boy at the corner store, what is his story? So it was a little bit about not judging people and taking an interest in people.

Given that you’ve looked at Tariq’s story in the first book, are you going to do something similar with the other books in the series?

They are all quite different. They all have some kind of social history involvement. The second one is about international trade in endangered marine species. So a bit like The White Giraffe series they all have a core – not message - I never think of myself as writing a message. These are things that interest me.  I care about conservation, I care about human rights and people, so these are natural themes for me. I think that young children are naturally empathetic and naturally loving and I think if we can tap into that at an early age, and try and help them as they grow up, and maintain their interest in helping and nurturing others, then they will become responsible adults.

Is that what made you become a writer? I know you became a golf journalist after college, can you tell us about what made you write for children. Do you find it useful talking about issues that interest you and that you are passionate about?

Yes I think it’s very liberating. I feel very fortunate to have done journalism. I feel all my life I’ve been fortunate to be able to write about the things I care about and am passionate about, and be paid to do it.

Basically I studied journalism and became obsessed with golf at college. I thought if I’m going to write for a living I can become a golf journalist and amazingly that’s what I did. At one point I knew I was going to be fired and as I’ve always been obsessed with writing books, I thought ‘I’ve got to get a book deal‘ and I got one in seven days!

It happened really quickly!

It was insane.

Was this for The White Giraffe?

It was for the first book I did for adults called Shooting at Clouds which is an insider’s view about a year inside the European Professional Golfers' Association Tour. That was kind of amazing. Then I got really into country music or what they call new country or alternative country over here. It was huge in America but not over here and I used to go to see these bands and ended up going to Nashville and following people like Emmylou Harris and The Dixie Chicks. I wrote about this experience in Walkin’After Midnight, a journey to the heart of Nashville.

The White Giraffe books came completely out of nowhere. I was trying to write my memoir about growing up in Zimbabwe and struggling, so my agent sent me away to Africa to get some inspiration. Before going I was walking down the street in London one day before Christmas and an image of a girl on a white giraffe came into my head. I thought wouldn’t it be the coolest thing on earth if you could actually ride a giraffe, and right there on the street the whole story came into my head. It was the weirdest thing. I went off and did my Christmas shopping and went home and wrote down everything I had thought of, thinking, this could be a book I could write when I’ve retired.

When I was in Africa I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so when I got back to London I thought what I’ll do is every Saturday I’ll have a little play with this idea and on the first Saturday the first chapter just came to me like watching a movie. It was so much fun, I couldn’t keep away from it. I wrote the first draft in a month, it just poured out of me. I had the strangest feeling that the story already existed.

I guess you could really draw on your experience in Zimbabwe, plus your love of Blyton. Are there other writers which have inspired you?

When I was growing up there were so many amazing animal books, horse books like The Black Stallion and the Silver Brumby series from Australia. I absolutely loved Patricia Leitch. I’ve had the honour of writing the forward for her books that have just been re-released.

The wonderful thing is when you are a child reading adventure stories you can escape and literally you can step into these worlds. If I pick up a book myself I love diving into the story, so I guess I enjoy it when I write and I feel like I’m living the adventure myself. It’s always a huge compliment if children write to me. One child wrote ‘you make me feel like I am living in the story and when Maxine got off the plane in Africa, I got off the plane in Africa’. I would be so thrilled if I felt I could do this for kids. I love being able to live so many lives through books.

Books and reading are obviously really important in your books. Laura carts her suitcase of books with her to her uncle. For a lot of children, books can really improve their reality.

What’s so great about books is they are democratic, it doesn’t matter who you are. You can be in really desperate circumstances and if you can get your hand on a book it can transform your life. They can really give a lot of hope and inspiration to kids and it’s still one of the most affordable things on earth.

You are very passionate about books and reading. What are your thoughts about what’s happening to our libraries?

Libraries are absolutely crucial to your learning. If you can read there is no end to where you can go in life. If you compromise children’s access to books you compromise their education and their future.

Could you give us some of your writing tips?

My best writing tip is to read and read very widely. I would not be a writer now if I hadn’t been obsessed with reading as a child. I think because writing isnt something that can be taught. You can definitely have your technique improved, there are a lot of amazing creative writing courses out there. But that basic love of words and love of language, I think that comes from reading.