As a child, my favourite book was Alice in Wonderland. It was a gift from my parents for my 8th birthday and I read it over and over, fascinated by a world so foreign and yet so oddly familiar. My father, raised in Victorian times and then in his mid-70’s, liked it too. This was his favourite:
You are old, Father William, the young man said
And your hair has become very white
And yet you incessantly stand on your head
Do you think at your age it is right?
My maternal grandmother was an artist – sadly, I never knew her but I grew up in a house surrounded by her paintings, which I studied assiduously. My mother recognized and encouraged an early talent for drawing. I read voraciously and also wrote stories. My first willing audience was my brother, three years younger. I remember telling him a tale that went on, in serial form, for years. It was curiously titled The House of Money and involved imaginary adventures he and I had in distant places of which I had only read. I very quickly realized that he would do almost anything to hear another episode and I wasn’t above exploiting this!
My father, overhearing a bit of the story, said “Why don’t you rather tell stories set in places that you know?” I reacted very badly indeed to this suggestion! It was precisely to escape the tedium of our day-to-day lives that I told these stories. I was home-schooled and at the time had few companions or entertainments except sedate walks with the family. There were wonderful times, though, when my brother and I would roam the forest and river near our home with a freedom that would be unthinkable for young children today.
My story The Mouseboat, I think best captures the spirit of that original story I told my brother so many years ago. It’s the story I would have loved to have heard, the adventure I would have loved to have had – and for which I have had to wait until middle age!
Paddy Bouma - 2008
