Laura and the Lady

One of the big bestsellers of the nineteen eighties was The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, and Hutchinson followed this with The Illustrated Lark Rise to Candleford in the same decorative style, based on the memoir by Flora Thompson.

I was asked to come up with a children’s book on the Lark Rise theme, aimed at five to nine-year-olds. The result was Laura and Old Lumber which, when brought to life by Kate Aldous’s illustrations, led on to a further three stories, Laura from Lark Rise, Laura and the Squire and Laura and the Lady, all based on characters and incidents in the orginal.

It was quite a challenge to adapt such a famous and well-loved book for a young audience, but good fun, too.

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