‘Hello,’ they say. Not ‘do you want to sign in,’ as they do in English schools. That’s what so friendly about Scotland, like this week’s Scottish Friendly tour, where Scottish Book Trust are driving Children’s Laureate Lauren Child (see how those words and her name sort of go together?) all over Central-ish Scotland. Same procedure as every tour; five days, one school in the morning and one in the afternoon. Apparently it can be hard to remember whether you just said what you just said, or if that was in the last place.
Not since they brought me the last Laureate – Chris Riddell – have I been so pleased that I didn’t have to travel anywhere to meet Lauren Child, but they brought her to me. This time there was no need to break into any schools, even if they did have our local primary school on the itinerary, as I managed to insinuate myself to join them for ‘the daily pizza.’
Except it wasn’t pizza this time. And the Burgh Coffee House was full, even with Scottish Book Trust’s Tom & Co looking pointedly at the table-hoggers there, so they repaired to the new place across the street, where I joined them, having a latte as they worked their way through avocado toast with whipped cream. Ah, no, it was actually poached eggs. Looked like cream. And Lauren Child took to having a random witch join her like the professional she is.
We started by agreeing how strange it was that after all these years, we’d never been in the same place at the same time before. A witch should always aspire to someone new. Her Charlie and Lola books, and subsequent television series, were too late for Offspring [and me]. I had perused Lauren’s website before the meeting and discovered that I am not the only one to believe she’s American.
She’s not. I deduced from her description of a very long radio interview she’d done with someone once, that she might be from Wiltshire. Apparently it matters where you come from, as it does which part of London you live in now.
I’d been hoping to ask a really good question, but Lauren beat me to it and asked one of me instead… ‘Who do you still hope to meet?’ My answer should have been, ‘after you, no one.’ But I wasn’t that alert at that moment.
Lauren has done what she wanted to do as Children’s Laureate, which is great. She’s at ‘the end’ now, and reckons she managed her goal by not setting such a crazy pace as her predecessor did. In fact, Lauren said it’d be better if the Laureate could stay on for longer than the two years, making it easier to have bigger goals, and for them to be successful.
She can also think of who might be good to take over after her, but is far too discreet to mention names. Although, she did say she feels it would be better not to choose the really big names, as someone slightly less famous could have more time to do the work.
I asked if it helps being known from television when she goes into schools, and it does. Sometimes children can take time to decide that an author is worth listening to, so if they already know about them, that helps.
Lauren’s entourage this week consists of three helpers, making her look terribly important. Scottish Book Trust’s Tom had managed to get two assistants to carry the books for him, which is good going for someone who drank Choconana two and a half years ago. Yesterday he had what looked suspiciously like some kind of coffee. And the café gave them two free slices of chocolate and beetroot cake. Because it was Wednesday.
As always, I stayed for far longer than I should have. (I blame the nice company.) And I turned down their kind offer to smuggle me into that afternoon’s primary school. It was good to have met Lauren, after so much time. And she looked lovely, dressed for spring, and far too sensible in a London and Wiltshire kind of way to even contemplate milkshakes. I’d say some sort of green tea?
The Occasional Bookwitch 