John Burningham and Helen Oxenbury: There's Going to be a Baby

John Burningham and Helen Oxenbury are two of Britain’s best known and most acclaimed illustrators; she is a three-time winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal, he has won it twice.

Oxenbury is a pioneer of the board book format, creator of the Tim and Pippo series and illustrator of classics such as Bear Hunt, Martin Waddell’s Farmer Duck and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. His work is at times conceptually challenging, often emotionally complex and also much loved. This month the ever popular Mr Gumpy’s Outing is published in a 40th anniversary edition.

They have just returned from Newcastle, where an exhibition of Burningham’s work has opened at Seven Stories, the centre for children’s books. Next week they’re off to Boston to collect a Horn Book/Boston Globe honour award for his book It’s a Secret. The phone rings, and it’s Woman’s Hour, who are shortly to do an interview with the pair. Oxenbury recalls the first time she was on Radio 4: it was the Today Programme, when We’re Going on a Bear Hunt came out. She was in awe of John Humphries, she says, but luckily Michael Rosen was there to do most of the talking.

From the vantage point of its light-filled conservatory, their Hampstead home seems an idyllic place to work: one imagines two artists in studios at opposite ends of the house, meeting for a coffee break in the characterful kitchen. Then Milo the terrier arrives demanding attention, their daughter Emily appears shortly afterwards to remove him from the scene, and it becomes clear that domestic bliss and art don’t necessarily mix. This is partly why after working in the attic for years Oxenbury abandoned it a decade ago in favour of a studio nearby. In any case, they say, they don’t really like to talk to each other about work.

‘You’ve got to be very careful,’ explains Burningham, ‘because a new idea is like a kind of oak tree that’s just come through the ground and it can be trodden on, or it can be ridiculed or it can be inhibited in some way. So you have to wait for the right moment. There are points when we show each other what we’re doing, but it’s usually quite advanced for that reason.’

Oxenbury agrees. ‘It’s a bit like when you’ve bought an article of clothing. You put it on and show it to someone and then they don’t like it, and that’s the end of it. And you feel terribly sensitive about that. But there are times when one is desperate to know: “What the hell am I doing?” It’s happened many times over the years.’ Her husband concurs. ‘Then it’s good to have someone who knows what they’re talking about.’

After three and a half decades of marriage and a similar period illustrating children’s books, the couple have finally published their first collaborative effort. Burningham came up with the idea and the text for There’s Going to be a Baby around fifteen years ago.

‘One would like to say it was based on our grandchildren. Was it?’ asks Burningham. ‘No,’ Oxenbury replies. ‘It was way before grandchildren.’ It wasn’t children either: Emily was the inspiration for Burningham’s Avocado Baby. He recalls that the idea for the latest book came from an overheard conversation on a bus. ‘There was a family, and the child said something like, “Everything was going fine until Cyril was born.” Undoubtedly it is a tremendously traumatic experience, or can be. You’ve got a lovely baby sister, but the baby sister’s taking all the attention.’

For this particular book to come to fruition it was always going to have to be a collaboration between them, says Burningham, because his own style of illustration wouldn’t have suited the subject, and ‘she’s about the only person who could have done it. It’s inspired drawing.’

In both its earlier incarnation and the published version the text is a conversation between mother and child. The voices are humorous, tender and sweet, but the toddler is also apprehensive and accusing: with Burningham as author the book was never going to be cloying. Though he maintains that his contribution is ‘miniscule, really, because it’s the drawings that are the great forte’, it’s the emotional honesty of the text that gives the book widespread appeal, regardless of whether or not readers are expecting a new sibling.

Although the idea came easily, it took time to get the tone right. ‘You’re battling through it,’ explains Burningham. ‘There were hold-ups and missing links, missing imagery. One of the breakthroughs was “Mrs Anderson’s baby was sick all over their new carpet.” That was something that was missing. It filled a gap.’

Oxenbury’s illustrations capture the relationship of mother and young son before the baby’s arrival shatters their intimacy. ‘You can see that they’re so close. And he’s not going to be the only one anymore. But the mum’s got to look after the baby; there’s nothing you can do.’ The book’s last image, of the boy and his grandfather about to meet the new baby, is poignant. ‘A lot of people have said tears come to their eyes. You know his life will not be quite the same again.’

She had great difficulty getting the illustrations right on the earlier draft. ‘The mother and child weren’t in any illustrations. In each illustration the baby was doing something that the mother had said: “maybe he’ll be a lorry driver.” I did an illustration of a very realistic baby in a lorry and it looked grotesque. It really didn’t look right at all. A little baby dressed up as a bank manager: it wasn’t amusing or anything. So we shelved it.’

Sometimes, though, she proceeds and only afterwards has a change of heart. ‘I’ve done books that at the end I’ve thought, if only I’d done it differently, the way I was thinking of it now, but it’s been too late. The farmer in Farmer Duck was one. In the end I realised that really he wasn’t the right character and I wished I’d gone all the way through doing him differently. But it was all right, it worked. He was rather a poor farmer. I would have done him as a very very rich farmer.’

‘This time round with There’s Going to Be a Baby I decided one had to show the relationship between the mother and the son. Another point was that the baby couldn’t be realistic because that was too weird.’ She hit upon the idea of illustrating the new baby in a comic strip. ‘When something’s a comic book character you can just fly with it. That idea was the moment when David Lloyd (of Walker Books) said, “I think we’ve got a book here!”’

The look of the comic book baby was inspired by the Beano, with ‘those wonderful limited colours and the dots’. She did the dots on the computer. It’s the first time she’s used a computer in her work and she would be happy to do so again. ‘There’s nothing wrong with using the computer if the finished result is what you want.’ The computer also helped her to achieve the flat colour that adds to the distinctive look of the book. ‘In order to get that grey on the cover absolutely flat, you could do it, but it’s going to need a mighty careful lot of brushing,’ points out Burningham, adding, ‘But the main thing is the drawing, and whether you have got the right connection - the body language and all that sort of thing.’

The book has a period feel to it, from the names the mother considers for the baby, Susan and Josephine, to the art deco-style font and café décor. ‘I suppose we’re a bit retro!’ says Oxenbury. ‘This is going back to our heyday. The café is a bit Lyons Corner House.’

‘I hadn’t thought about that, but it is true,’ says Burningham. ‘It is also in a way very Japanese.’ Oxenbury agrees. ‘I go through phases and I do love Japanese prints. I love the simplicity of them. Also the colour. They’re really gorgeous. There’s a hint of that.’

So far all the signs are that their first collaboration will be very well received indeed, and certainly the couple are happy with the way the book has turned out. Will they work together again? ‘If he gets his act together…’ says Oxenbury. Burningham is more certain. ‘I’m sure there will be the right thing that will come up, yes. I hope so, because then I won’t have to do the drawings. Wonderful!’