WHEN YOU WERE YOUNG
Is there a book from your childhood that really sticks out in your mind? And, is there a book that you now read with your own children that has completely grabbed their imagination?
RUSSELL &
OONA PINCH
Russell and Oona Pinch live in London with their two
daughters, Ada, aged two and Floris, aged six
months.
A husband and wife team, they run the
award-winning furniture, product and interior design
company, PINCH. Russell also designs for other
retailers and brands including SCP, Ercol, Conran
and JME, Jamie Oliver’s home-ware range.
For Russell Pinch, there remains one firm favourite:
“My favourite book would have to be Danny the
Champion of the World, by Roald Dahl, because
Danny was everything I dreamed of being and his life
was everything I wanted – living in a caravan,
masterminding plots with his dad, embarking on
escapades to catch pheasants out in the woods.
It’s a little tragic that I now live in London!”
Oona’s childhood choice just had to be The Secret
Seven books, by Enid Blyton: “because it’s about a
mixed gang of boys and girls and I just really wanted
to hang out with them. I envied them that they did
so much and had adventures without their parents
knowing!”
And, what about now? “I really love
reading Up in the Tree, by Margaret Atwood, with
Ada. It’s an absolutely beautiful book, with amazing
drawings,” says Russell. First published in the
1970’s, Margaret Atwood not only wrote and
illustrated the book, she also hand-lettered the type.
Using only two colours, there is a surprisingly large
range of tones and textures that accompany one
long, playful poem about two saucer-eyed boys
who live in a tree, away from more mundane
earthly concerns.
“I really enjoy reading The Snail and The Whale,
by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler,” adds Oona.
Telling the story of the adventures of a tiny snail who
hitches a lift on the tail of a whale in order to see the
world it is “a gorgeous, brilliant book!”
But what
about Ada? Her parents laugh: “At the age of two
she has strong opinions on the subject. It’s Charlie
and Lola… or nothing…”
EUAN
RELLIE
Euan Rellie has two sons, Heathcliff and Titus, aged
six and two.
Joint founder and Senior Managing
Director of investment banking firm BDA Business
Development Asia, he lives in New York with his
wife Lucy Sykes Rellie, a former fashion director
at Marie Claire.
Euan Rellie has recently been revisiting some of the
old books he read when he was younger: “I’ve been
drawn back to re-reading the likes of Doctor Dolittle,
The Wind in the Willows and Watership Down, even
though the last one is so sad.
One book, in
particular, that I remember my dad reading to me
all the time was A.A. Milne’s Now We Are Six.”
First published in 1927, the book consists of 35
children’s poems with simple yet fantastic pen and ink
drawings by E.H. Shepard. With lines from the King
like: “I do like a little bit of butter to my bread,” for his
Royal slice of bread and “James James Morrison
Morrison Wetherby George Dupree,” who “took great
care of his mother though he was only three,” the
poems have remained in our collective memory
whilst others have come and gone. Perhaps this is
more due to their dancing rhythm and onomatopoeic
rhymes than their depiction of an era long gone.
“The language is incredibly dated and arcane,” notes
Euan, “but it is so beautifully written that this doesn’t
matter. I am reading it now with my six year-old,
Heathcliff and two year-old, Titus. Although there are
some things that Heathcliff will ask me about, they
both absolutely love the cadence and the sense of
it along with the imagery the poems evoke.”
Look out for the Return to the Hundred Acre Wood,
the first official sequel written by David Benedictus.
EDWARD RUTHERFURD
Although born in
Salisbury, Wiltshire and
educated at Cambridge
and Stanford, the author
Edward Rutherfurd has
spent much of the last
30 years living in New
York and Connecticut.
He has a son and
daughter, both educated
in the US and now
grown up.
“I was a very ordinary little boy. When I was four,
my teacher told me I was backward. So I could
relate to Thomas the Tank Engine, the little fellow –
hopeful, inexperienced, wanting to succeed – whom
Sir Topham Hatt could never entrust with the big
tasks, like pulling the Express, yet who still made
himself useful. Thomas might be humble, but he
still came to the rescue when other engines – Henry,
James, even mighty Gordon – got in trouble.
Thomas was valued and loved.
As for the railway itself, it had all the magic of steam
– the gleaming brass, the shining metal, the power
of pressure and puff – that railway buffs love today.
So it was a great joy to me to find that my American
children, a boy and a girl, loved the mechanical yet
fragile world of Thomas as much as I had. In their
generation and country, however, there came an
added bonus. For to my children, Thomas the Tank
Engine also meant Ringo Starr as narrator and Mr
Conductor too. So from there it was an easy step
to introduce them to The Beatles – music with lyrics!
– whom they also loved, and who proved a welcome
relief on many a long car journey.”
Edward Rutherford is a bestselling author of
historical fiction, which draws on minutely researched
social history. In the wake of huge success with a
number of historical novels including Sarum and
London, his latest book, New York, tells the 400 year
story of a city that has often played centre stage in
world history. Remaining as exciting as ever
New York is, in his words,
“a magnificent gift to the
storyteller.”
His biography
of the city is told through
larger-than-life fictional
and true characters
“whose fates interweave
in the rise and fall and
rise again of the city’s
fortunes.”