Authorgraph No.216


C


aroline Binch is the award-winning author and illustrator of much-loved picture books such as Gregory Cool, Hue Boy, Christy’s Dream and Amazing Grace, and Road Horse,


a book for young readers. Her books are always about people and places she cares deeply about, encouraging her readers to ‘See the positives in life instead of the negatives.’ She has won the Smarties Prize and been Highly Commended three times for the CILIP Kate Greenaway Award.


Amazing Grace is celebrating its 25th anniversary and over one million sales. Its publisher Frances Lincoln has produced a special new edition with reflections from Caroline, and the book’s author Mary Hoffman.


I met Caroline, and her dog Betty, at her home in Cornwall, a welcoming granite cottage full of colour, with pictures everywhere – postcards, cuttings,


paintings


and drawings, many by Caroline, including a stunning portrait of W. H. Auden. Upstairs is her studio, with a draughtsman’s desk from


Trafford Park, where her mother used to work. Set by a window it has a view across the Penwith fields to the sea. Caroline walks these fields with her dog and goes in the sea every day.


There are boxes labelled with the names of her picture books, containing the photographs used for creating each book. There are files with the images for book covers from the 70s onwards: many old friends – Dick Cate’s Ghost Dog, Jan Needle’s My Mate Shofiq. In her bathroom is the enlarger she used for printing her photographs – all digital now, no need for a bathroom darkroom.


We sat by the kitchen range and talked. Youthful, quietly spoken, reflective, and humorous, Caroline told me some of her story and how horses first inspired her to draw.


She grew up in Old Trafford. Her father loved the outdoors and there were country walks, Camping Club weekends, and tents pitched in Cornwall every summer. Always her heart has been in Cornwall. And her great love has been horses. Christy’s Dream is Caroline’s story.


She wasn’t happy at school except in art, where she could mostly paint what she wanted – horses – and was good at it. In the evenings, while her father worked night shifts, she and her mother often went


Caroline Binch Interviewed by Tricia Kings


to the cinema, especially for cowboy films. From the age of 8 she was riding. She helped at a stables and at 11 she started saving for a horse from her paper round. At 17 she got him. Without her parents knowing. Just like Christy.


Wonder Boy was a two year old 15.2 blue roan, advertised in Horse and Hound for 130 guineas. She had saved £50, so she borrowed the rest and found a field for £1 a week. He was easy to break in and most days she cycled to see him, an hour each way. Before long her mother challenged her: ‘Anyone would think you had a horse’. ‘Yes, I have’. Her parents were angry, ‘It’s either the horse or college’. ‘Come and see him.’ It worked.


She went to Salford Technical College to study Graphics, and every summer she waitressed in Cornwall. Her horse went there too, in an old furniture van. As with all her adventures she said ‘I’ll sort it out when we get there, things will fall into place.’ And they did – a field was found.


She got her diploma but felt restricted by graphics. Most of all she was an illustrator. In Cornwall with her horse and her dog she drew and painted and kept herself through different jobs – life- modelling, nannying, farmwork. She built up a portfolio inspired by her passions – horses, Africa, black history and black American music, and photography.


Her passion for Africa came from her mother, who grew up in Namibia. Her stories and photographs made a strong impression. Caroline’s grandfather had gone to Africa from Barnardo’s and worked as a railway guard.


A keen interest in black American music and black history was fuelled by books from the library. ‘The library has always been big in my life’. She recalls a picture book about West Africa: ‘the beauty and the energy of people, so creative in their dress and decorations.’ From early years the library was also the source of boys’ adventure stories about horses. No Jill’s Gymkhana for Caroline!


She was always interested in photography. She was doing drawings – ‘pushing it a bit further all the time’ - using her own photographs, and those from books, like the pictures of the US Dustbowl migrants: ‘People marginalised in the world. Their life on their faces.’


There were always adventures – a bike accident, a damp shack by a river, selling some pictures, never enough money. Leaving Cornwall, she eventually reached London with her portfolio, gaining the interest of the illustration agency Artist Partners whose artists included Brian Sanders, Michael Lennard and Roger Coleman, Caroline’s heroes. The agency made her a magical work offer: a Soho studio and a loan of £20 a week. Soon she was earning: advertising jobs, Sunday


8 Books for Keeps No.216 January 2016


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