Mairi Hedderwick
Encyclopedia
Mairi Hedderwick is a Scottish
illustrator
and author
, best known for the Katie Morag
series of children's picture books set on the Isle of Struay, a fictional counterpart of the real-life inner Hebridean
island of Coll
where Hedderwick has lived at various times for much of her life.
She has also written three books of travel writing
for adults, and is the illustrator of a growing range of Hebridean stationery.
on 2 May 1939, the daughter of Douglas Lindsay, an architect who died suddenly when she was thirteen, and Margaret Crawford; she was the grand-daughter of Dan Crawford
, a renowned Scottish missionary. She was educated at Gourock primary school and then at the independent St Columba's School for Girls in nearby Kilmacolm
, but describes her childhood in the strict Christian household as "serious, very lonely", always feeling out of place. Instead she longed for the kind of carefree existence she would later depict in the Katie Morag stories, and used to wish herself "over the hills and far away" beyond the Cowal
hills that she could see behind Kirn and Dunoon
on the far side of the Firth of Clyde
.
In 1957 she went to Edinburgh College of Art
, studying mural painting and ceramics, where she noticed an advertisement for a mother's help on the Isle of Coll. She went to the island for the first time that year, and then came back every summer of her student vacations. After graduating she married Ronnie Hedderwick on 24 June 1962, and worked for two years as a travelling art teacher in Mid Argyll, qualifying at Jordanhill College of Education. The couple then spent eighteen months working respectively as a dairymaid and a cattleman on a large farm estate at Applecross
in Wester Ross
; but in 1965, three months after the birth of her first child, they moved to Coll, where they bought Crossapol, an isolated 19th century farmhouse at the southern end of the island, with a big Rayburn
stove and oil and gas lamps and a well, but neither electricity nor running water nor permanent road access, three miles from the next nearest house, at the end of a mile and a half of white sand beach. There the family lived for ten years, raising their two children Mark and Tammie. Initially the family had hoped to make a living tending lobster pots and keeping a few sheep and cattle, but increasingly Hedderwick began turning to her artistic skills to supplement the family income, teaching in the local school, selling pictures to tourists, and in 1969 starting a printing business called the Malin Workshop producing postcards and illustrated calendars with drawings of wildlife and maps of the islands, initially all hand-printed without electricity. A visitor she met on the beach one day turned out to be an editor at Macmillan Books; showing off the nearby house full of her watercolours, she was soon signed up as a contract illustrator for the company, winning an in-house contest to illustrate a version by Rumer Godden
of The Old Woman who lived in a Vinegar Bottle (1972) and then three children's books featuring Janet Reachfar by the established Scottish author Jane Duncan
.
With no secondary schools on the island, the family left Coll in 1973 and moved to Fort William
on the mainland to remain all together. After Jane Duncan died in 1976, Hedderwick was encouraged by her editor to take the plunge and write and illustrate her own stories. However it was not until 1984, three publishers later, that the first of Hedderwick's Katie Morag stories, Katie Morag Delivers the Mail, finally appeared in print inspired by her time on Coll. The book was well received, and three more Katie Morag picturebooks rapidly followed in the next three years.
Hedderwick's marriage came to an end in the mid-1980s, and with her children now educated, she gave up a part-time job with the Highlands and Islands Development Board advising community co-operatives and in 1990 moved back to Coll, first letting and then fully buying back the house at Crossapol, where she found her children's childhood pictures still on the walls. In her next Katie Morag book, Katie Morag and the New Pier (1993), she addressed the issue of an island that was changing fast from the remote isolated place she had known in the 1960s. Another four Katie Morag books followed, but increasingly Hedderwick began to find herself becoming a not-entirely-willing tourist attraction on Coll in her own right, and after almost ten years she felt it was time to move on. Five years in the Scottish Borders
followed, succeeded by several years restoring a pair of cottages near Jemimaville
on the Black Isle
looking over the Cromarty Firth
; but neither felt quite right, so in 2005 she decided to return again to Coll, where she has built a new house close to her daughter and grandchildren.
series for which she is best known, which now runs to fourteen books and various omnibus collections, other books that Mairi Hedderwick has written and illustrated include:
For other authors, in addition to the Rumer Godden book and the three Janet Reachfar books by Jane Duncan in the 1970s already mentioned, Hedderwick in the 1980s contributed illustrations for a number of non-fiction books published by independent Aberdeenshire-based Northern Books; for a number of children's books in Gaelic published by Lisa Storey's Leabhraichean Beaga press in Inverness; and for four children's books by Moira Miller: Hamish and the Wee Witch (Methuen, 1986), Hamish and the Fairy Gifts (Methuen, 1988), Meet Maggie O'Muddle (Methuen, 1989), and A Kist O' Whistles: Scottish Folk Tales (André Deutsch, 1990).
In the 1990s she illustrated Christopher Rush
's Venus Peter Saves the Whale (Canongate, 1992), a reworking of the story from his acclaimed 1985 novel A Twelvemonth and a Day and the 1989 film Venus Peter
. The book won the Friends of the Earth
1993 Earthworm Award for the book published that year that would most help children to enjoy and care for the Earth.
Other books she has illustrated include Joan Lingard
's Hands Off Our School! (Hamish Hamilton, 1992), a novel about the students of a small rural one-teacher primary school trying to save it from closure; and Tom Pow's Calum's Big Day (Iynx Publishing, 2000), a knockabout exploration of Scottish identity for five year olds.
Since 2005 the Scottish publisher Birlinn
have published a steadily growing series of hardback stationery illustrated by Hedderwick. As of 2011 the range includes address books, birthday books, calendars and a number of different annual diaries, each featuring a multitude of different sketches by Hedderwick of the Highlands and the Hebrides.
from Stirling University in 2003, in recognition of "her outstanding contribution to writing and illustration in Scotland, especially for children".
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
illustrator
Illustrator
An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...
and author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, best known for the Katie Morag
Katie Morag
Katie Morag is the title character of a series of children's picture books written and illustrated by Mairi Hedderwick. The gentle stories have been praised for their good humour, strong sense of place, and for the feisty and independent character of Katie herself.The books are set on the...
series of children's picture books set on the Isle of Struay, a fictional counterpart of the real-life inner Hebridean
Inner Hebrides
The Inner Hebrides is an archipelago off the west coast of Scotland, to the south east of the Outer Hebrides. Together these two island chains form the Hebrides, which enjoy a mild oceanic climate. There are 36 inhabited islands and a further 43 uninhabited Inner Hebrides with an area greater than...
island of Coll
Coll
Coll is a small island, west of Mull in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. Coll is known for its sandy beaches, which rise to form large sand dunes, for its corncrakes, and for Breachacha Castle.-Geography and geology:...
where Hedderwick has lived at various times for much of her life.
She has also written three books of travel writing
Travel literature
Travel literature is travel writing of literary value. Travel literature typically records the experiences of an author touring a place for the pleasure of travel. An individual work is sometimes called a travelogue or itinerary. Travel literature may be cross-cultural or transnational in focus, or...
for adults, and is the illustrator of a growing range of Hebridean stationery.
Life
Mairi Crawford Lindsay was born in GourockGourock
Gourock is a town falling within the Inverclyde council area and formerly forming a burgh of the historic county of Renfrewshire in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. It has in the past functioned as a seaside resort on the Firth of Clyde...
on 2 May 1939, the daughter of Douglas Lindsay, an architect who died suddenly when she was thirteen, and Margaret Crawford; she was the grand-daughter of Dan Crawford
Dan Crawford (missionary)
Dan Crawford , also known as 'Konga Vantu', was a Scottish missionary of the Plymouth Brethren in central-southern Africa. He was born in Greenock, son of a Clyde boat captain...
, a renowned Scottish missionary. She was educated at Gourock primary school and then at the independent St Columba's School for Girls in nearby Kilmacolm
Kilmacolm
Kilmacolm is a village and civil parish in the Inverclyde council area and the historic county of Renfrewshire in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. It lies on the northern slope of the Gryffe Valley south-east of Greenock and around west of the city of Glasgow...
, but describes her childhood in the strict Christian household as "serious, very lonely", always feeling out of place. Instead she longed for the kind of carefree existence she would later depict in the Katie Morag stories, and used to wish herself "over the hills and far away" beyond the Cowal
Cowal
thumb|Cowal shown within ArgyllCowal is a peninsula in Argyll and Bute in the Scottish Highlands.-Description:The northern part of Cowal is mostly the mountainous Argyll Forest Park. Cowal is separated from the Kintyre peninsula to the west by Loch Fyne, and from Inverclyde and North Ayrshire to...
hills that she could see behind Kirn and Dunoon
Dunoon
Dunoon is a resort town situated on the Cowal Peninsula in Argyll, Scotland. It sits on the Firth of Clyde to the south of Holy Loch and to the west of Gourock.-Waterfront:...
on the far side of the Firth of Clyde
Firth of Clyde
The Firth of Clyde forms a large area of coastal water, sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean by the Kintyre peninsula which encloses the outer firth in Argyll and Ayrshire, Scotland. The Kilbrannan Sound is a large arm of the Firth of Clyde, separating the Kintyre Peninsula from the Isle of Arran.At...
.
In 1957 she went to Edinburgh College of Art
Edinburgh College of Art
Edinburgh College of Art is an art school in Edinburgh, Scotland, providing tertiary education in art and design disciplines for over two thousand students....
, studying mural painting and ceramics, where she noticed an advertisement for a mother's help on the Isle of Coll. She went to the island for the first time that year, and then came back every summer of her student vacations. After graduating she married Ronnie Hedderwick on 24 June 1962, and worked for two years as a travelling art teacher in Mid Argyll, qualifying at Jordanhill College of Education. The couple then spent eighteen months working respectively as a dairymaid and a cattleman on a large farm estate at Applecross
Applecross
The Applecross peninsula is a peninsula in Wester Ross, Highland, on the west coast of Scotland. The name Applecross is at least 1300 years old and is not used locally to refer to the 19th century village with the pub and post office, lying on the small Applecross Bay, facing the Inner Sound, on...
in Wester Ross
Wester Ross
is a western area of Ross and Cromarty in Scotland, notably containing the villages on the west coast such as:* Lochcarron* Applecross* Shieldaig* Torridon* Kinlochewe * * * Aultbea* Laide* Ullapool* Achiltibuie...
; but in 1965, three months after the birth of her first child, they moved to Coll, where they bought Crossapol, an isolated 19th century farmhouse at the southern end of the island, with a big Rayburn
Rayburn Range
The Rayburn is a type of stove similar in nature to the AGA and are manufactured in Telford at the same factory as the AGA.The Rayburn was launched in 1946 with two hotplates, and one or two ovens and the ability to heat water...
stove and oil and gas lamps and a well, but neither electricity nor running water nor permanent road access, three miles from the next nearest house, at the end of a mile and a half of white sand beach. There the family lived for ten years, raising their two children Mark and Tammie. Initially the family had hoped to make a living tending lobster pots and keeping a few sheep and cattle, but increasingly Hedderwick began turning to her artistic skills to supplement the family income, teaching in the local school, selling pictures to tourists, and in 1969 starting a printing business called the Malin Workshop producing postcards and illustrated calendars with drawings of wildlife and maps of the islands, initially all hand-printed without electricity. A visitor she met on the beach one day turned out to be an editor at Macmillan Books; showing off the nearby house full of her watercolours, she was soon signed up as a contract illustrator for the company, winning an in-house contest to illustrate a version by Rumer Godden
Rumer Godden
Margaret Rumer Godden OBE was an English author of over 60 fiction and nonfiction books written under the name of Rumer Godden. A few of her works were co-written by her sister, Jon Godden, who wrote several novels on her own...
of The Old Woman who lived in a Vinegar Bottle (1972) and then three children's books featuring Janet Reachfar by the established Scottish author Jane Duncan
Jane Duncan
Jane Duncan was the pseudonym of Scottish writer Elizabeth Jane Cameron, best-known for her My Friends series of semi-autobiographical novels...
.
With no secondary schools on the island, the family left Coll in 1973 and moved to Fort William
Fort William, Scotland
Fort William is the second largest settlement in the highlands of Scotland and the largest town: only the city of Inverness is larger.Fort William is a major tourist centre with Glen Coe just to the south, Aonach Mòr to the north and Glenfinnan to the west, on the Road to the Isles...
on the mainland to remain all together. After Jane Duncan died in 1976, Hedderwick was encouraged by her editor to take the plunge and write and illustrate her own stories. However it was not until 1984, three publishers later, that the first of Hedderwick's Katie Morag stories, Katie Morag Delivers the Mail, finally appeared in print inspired by her time on Coll. The book was well received, and three more Katie Morag picturebooks rapidly followed in the next three years.
Hedderwick's marriage came to an end in the mid-1980s, and with her children now educated, she gave up a part-time job with the Highlands and Islands Development Board advising community co-operatives and in 1990 moved back to Coll, first letting and then fully buying back the house at Crossapol, where she found her children's childhood pictures still on the walls. In her next Katie Morag book, Katie Morag and the New Pier (1993), she addressed the issue of an island that was changing fast from the remote isolated place she had known in the 1960s. Another four Katie Morag books followed, but increasingly Hedderwick began to find herself becoming a not-entirely-willing tourist attraction on Coll in her own right, and after almost ten years she felt it was time to move on. Five years in the Scottish Borders
Scottish Borders
The Scottish Borders is one of 32 local government council areas of Scotland. It is bordered by Dumfries and Galloway in the west, South Lanarkshire and West Lothian in the north west, City of Edinburgh, East Lothian, Midlothian to the north; and the non-metropolitan counties of Northumberland...
followed, succeeded by several years restoring a pair of cottages near Jemimaville
Jemimaville
Jemimaville is a small village in the Highland region of Scotland. It sits on the northern coast of the Black Isle, overlooking the Cromarty Firth. The village is 7 km west of Cromarty and 3 km south of Invergordon on the opposite shore of the firth. It has 18 houses and around 50 inhabitants, and...
on the Black Isle
Black Isle
The Black Isle is an eastern area of the Highland local government council area of Scotland, within the county of Ross and Cromarty. The name nearly always includes the article "the"....
looking over the Cromarty Firth
Cromarty Firth
The Cromarty Firth of Cromarty') is an arm of the North Sea in Scotland. It is the middle of the three sea lochs at the head of the Moray Firth: to the north lies the Dornoch Firth, and to the south the Beauly Firth....
; but neither felt quite right, so in 2005 she decided to return again to Coll, where she has built a new house close to her daughter and grandchildren.
Works
As well as the Katie MoragKatie Morag
Katie Morag is the title character of a series of children's picture books written and illustrated by Mairi Hedderwick. The gentle stories have been praised for their good humour, strong sense of place, and for the feisty and independent character of Katie herself.The books are set on the...
series for which she is best known, which now runs to fourteen books and various omnibus collections, other books that Mairi Hedderwick has written and illustrated include:
- Peedie Peebles Summer or Winter Book (Bodley Head, 1989), for younger children, featuring a boisterous toddler, set on Orkney
- Peedie Peebles Colour Book (Bodley Head, 1994); paperback as Oh No, Peedie Peebles...! (Red Fox, 1997)
- Dreamy Robbie! (1993), Robbie's First Day at School (1993), Robbie's Trousers (1993), Robbie and Grandpa (1994), Robbie's Birthday (1994; all Oliver & Boyd), short 8 page self-read paperbacks for the "Reading 2000 Storytime" primary years reading programme
- The Tale of Carpenter MacPheigh (Blackie, 1994), part of Blackie's Folk Tales of the World series
- A Walk with Grannie (Hodder, 2003)
- The Utterly Otterlys (Hodder, 2006), about a family of otterOtterThe Otters are twelve species of semi-aquatic mammals which feed on fish and shellfish, and also other invertebrates, amphibians, birds and small mammals....
s on a search for a new home
For other authors, in addition to the Rumer Godden book and the three Janet Reachfar books by Jane Duncan in the 1970s already mentioned, Hedderwick in the 1980s contributed illustrations for a number of non-fiction books published by independent Aberdeenshire-based Northern Books; for a number of children's books in Gaelic published by Lisa Storey's Leabhraichean Beaga press in Inverness; and for four children's books by Moira Miller: Hamish and the Wee Witch (Methuen, 1986), Hamish and the Fairy Gifts (Methuen, 1988), Meet Maggie O'Muddle (Methuen, 1989), and A Kist O' Whistles: Scottish Folk Tales (André Deutsch, 1990).
In the 1990s she illustrated Christopher Rush
Christopher Rush (writer)
Christopher Rush is a Scottish writer, born in St Monans and for thirty years a teacher of literature in Edinburgh. His books include A Twelvemonth and a Day and the highly acclaimed To Travel Hopefully.A Twelvemonth and a Day served as inspiration for the film...
's Venus Peter Saves the Whale (Canongate, 1992), a reworking of the story from his acclaimed 1985 novel A Twelvemonth and a Day and the 1989 film Venus Peter
Venus Peter
Venus Peter is a 1989 British drama film directed by Ian Sellar and produced by Christopher Young for Young films. The film is an adopation of the novel A Twelvemonth and a Day by Christopher Rush. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival. It was filmed on...
. The book won the Friends of the Earth
Friends of the Earth
Friends of the Earth International is an international network of environmental organizations in 76 countries.FOEI is assisted by a small secretariat which provides support for the network and its agreed major campaigns...
1993 Earthworm Award for the book published that year that would most help children to enjoy and care for the Earth.
Other books she has illustrated include Joan Lingard
Joan Lingard
Joan Lingard is a Scottish novel writer.- Career :Lingard has written novels for both adults and children...
's Hands Off Our School! (Hamish Hamilton, 1992), a novel about the students of a small rural one-teacher primary school trying to save it from closure; and Tom Pow's Calum's Big Day (Iynx Publishing, 2000), a knockabout exploration of Scottish identity for five year olds.
Travel writing, and stationery
Beyond her work for children, Mairi Hedderwick has produced three volumes of travel writing, accompanied by drawings and watercolour sketches, reflecting in often quite personal terms her feelings and experiences on three long Scottish journeys:- An Eye on the Hebrides: An illustrated journey (Canongate 1989 / Birlinn 2009), a six month long odyssey through the HebridesHebridesThe Hebrides comprise a widespread and diverse archipelago off the west coast of Scotland. There are two main groups: the Inner and Outer Hebrides. These islands have a long history of occupation dating back to the Mesolithic and the culture of the residents has been affected by the successive...
, visiting forty different islands from ArranIsle of ArranArran or the Isle of Arran is the largest island in the Firth of Clyde, Scotland, and with an area of is the seventh largest Scottish island. It is in the unitary council area of North Ayrshire and the 2001 census had a resident population of 5,058...
to LewisLewisLewis is the northern part of Lewis and Harris, the largest island of the Western Isles or Outer Hebrides of Scotland. The total area of Lewis is ....
. - Highland Journey: A sketching tour of Scotland (Canongate 1992 / Birlinn 2009), in which she retraces a sketching tour made by the obscure Victorian artist John Thomas Reid, comparing her experiences.
- Sea Change: The Summer Voyage from East to West Scotland of the Anassa (Canongate 1999 / Birlinn 2009), a six-week voyage down the Caledonian CanalCaledonian CanalThe Caledonian Canal is a canal in Scotland that connects the Scottish east coast at Inverness with the west coast at Corpach near Fort William. It was constructed in the early nineteenth century by engineer Thomas Telford, and is a sister canal of the Göta Canal in Sweden, also constructed by...
and out to sea, undertaken to mark her leave-taking of Coll at the end of the 1990s.
Since 2005 the Scottish publisher Birlinn
Birlinn Limited
Birlinn Limited is an independent publishing house based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Established in 1992 by Managing Director Hugh Andrew, Birlinn Limited is composed of a number of imprints, including, among others:...
have published a steadily growing series of hardback stationery illustrated by Hedderwick. As of 2011 the range includes address books, birthday books, calendars and a number of different annual diaries, each featuring a multitude of different sketches by Hedderwick of the Highlands and the Hebrides.
Recognition
Hedderwick was awarded an honorary degreeHonorary degree
An honorary degree or a degree honoris causa is an academic degree for which a university has waived the usual requirements, such as matriculation, residence, study, and the passing of examinations...
from Stirling University in 2003, in recognition of "her outstanding contribution to writing and illustration in Scotland, especially for children".
Further reading
- Mairi Hedderwick, "The Artist at Work: A Sense of Place", Horn Book MagazineHorn Book MagazineThe Horn Book Magazine, founded in Boston in 1924, is a bimonthly periodical about literature for children and young adults. It began life as a "suggestive purchase list" prepared by Bertha Mahony Miller and Elinor Whitney Field, proprietresses of the country's first bookstore for children, The...
66(2), March–April 1990, pp. 171–77. - Mairi Hedderwick, "The Writing Day", in Jenny Brown and Shona Munro (eds.), Writers Writing, p. 89. Edinburgh: Mainstream PublishingMainstream PublishingMainstream Publishing is a publishing company in Edinburgh, Scotland, founded in 1978. It is associated with the Random House Group, who bought Mainstream in 2005....
, 1993. ISBN 1851584951.
External links
- Mairi Hedderwick page at Random House
- Mairi Hedderwick page at Birlinn
- Archives of the Coll Magazine, which Hedderwick co-founded and was initially "art collaborator" for, featuring many cartoons and pen sketches