MICHAEL FOREMAN

I have been lucky with writers. None have been real trouble. Some I never met. Some I meet only after the book is finished, and some, the easiest to get along with, are the dead ones. Most become friends.

When I started writing and illustrating, I knew little of classic children's literature. My stories came from real life, from my concerns about what was happening in the world.

When coming in to land at Santiago, Chile, I saw the area between the city and the Andes mountains was smoking with rubbish dumps. While exploring the dumps, I made friends with people living and working there and saw how they survived through recycling the rubbish.

From an early age, I had always loved drawing. Laying on the floor, in front of the fire, drawing from my imagination, marching soldiers, dive bombers, spaceships and monsters. Now, suddenly, I was drawing from real life!

Things have to be believable, not in a literal, photographic sense, but in an emotional sense - capturing the essence of the situation.

In big battle scenes, like 'King Arthur', you see the knights in all their fine armour, but they're not in the thick of it: follow the perspective, and you'll find some poor little sod, who didn't want to be there, anyway, with his head split.

I never read any fairy tales or classics until I was an adult; all we ever had was comics... No television, either. If we wanted entertainment, we hung around the fish shop.

Before I could walk, my world was a world of legs - soldiers' legs, sailors' legs, bus drivers' legs and, worst of all, little old ladies' legs. Growing up in the shop was fantastic - American GIs, Poles, Czechs, Australians, troops from all over the world came to our shop for cigarettes and cups of tea and inspired my desire to travel the world.

I've done a bit of teaching, but I gave it up - I felt uneasy teaching illustration to people who hadn't yet learned to draw.

My book 'Ali Pasha' tells the true story of a young sailor Henry Friston, who, in the hell-fire of battle, forms an unusual friendship.

In big battle scenes, like 'King Arthur', you see the knights in all their fine armour, but they're not in the thick of it: follow the perspective, and you'll find some poor little sod, who didn't want to be there, anyway, with his head split.

For me, travelling and drawing the world, experiencing as much as possible first hand, has been very important. Making notes, drawing and writing on the move, became second nature.

On the death of his brothers, my dad lied about his age and joined the army in 1918. He was in the trenches long enough to be gassed and contract the early stages of tuberculosis from which he would eventually die just before my birth.

Drawing was the only thing I was any good at in school, but I never dreamt I would, or even could, spend my life doing it.

I never read any fairy tales or classics until I was an adult; all we ever had was comics... No television, either. If we wanted entertainment, we hung around the fish shop.

Things have to be believable, not in a literal, photographic sense, but in an emotional sense - capturing the essence of the situation.

When coming in to land at Santiago, Chile, I saw the area between the city and the Andes mountains was smoking with rubbish dumps. While exploring the dumps, I made friends with people living and working there and saw how they survived through recycling the rubbish.

My book 'Ali Pasha' tells the true story of a young sailor Henry Friston, who, in the hell-fire of battle, forms an unusual friendship.

Drawing teaches you to look at things properly and to understand form and structure.

When I started writing and illustrating, I knew little of classic children's literature. My stories came from real life, from my concerns about what was happening in the world.

I don't think about 'age groups.'

From an early age, I had always loved drawing. Laying on the floor, in front of the fire, drawing from my imagination, marching soldiers, dive bombers, spaceships and monsters. Now, suddenly, I was drawing from real life!

I didn't read children's books when I was a child. The only books in our house were ration books.

The seed of an idea laying dormant in an old sketchbook is fed the missing ingredient from a new experience. Trying to share some of these experiences, some of the wonders, is one of the reasons why I do books.

Before I could walk, my world was a world of legs - soldiers' legs, sailors' legs, bus drivers' legs and, worst of all, little old ladies' legs. Growing up in the shop was fantastic - American GIs, Poles, Czechs, Australians, troops from all over the world came to our shop for cigarettes and cups of tea and inspired my desire to travel the world.

I have been lucky with writers. None have been real trouble. Some I never met. Some I meet only after the book is finished, and some, the easiest to get along with, are the dead ones. Most become friends.

I've done a bit of teaching, but I gave it up - I felt uneasy teaching illustration to people who hadn't yet learned to draw.