Why humour? Is it just entertainment, or does it do more than that?

No, it does infinitely more than that. It seems to me that humour is everybody's way of keeping sane and standing off from the situations so that they can see it intellectually, as well as emotionally, and I don't know whether you've noticed, but if somebody tells a joke, it's nearly always a mini fantasy. When children first learn the joke is a marvellous moment for them and they bore you stiff with these, and I heard them so many times that I started to think of them as quite as themselves; "What lies on the ocean bottom and shivers? A nervous wreck"! This is a pocket fantasy! And the really boring people, the only time they fantasize is telling jokes, if you notice, when people tell jokes they are, for the one time in their lives, open to the grotesque maybe, but it's fantasy.

It sounds from the things you've said that you have made decisions about the sorts of things that you would like to communicate to kids.

Yes I have, but in a sort of large and nebulous way. Mainly as sort of blueprints for dealing with most of the adults in their lives, to some extent with their fellows; this is difficult, with your peers, and this notion of aiming high and there's always hope, aim low and you might as well stop now.

The garden in Charmed Life. That to me has the most incredible religious overtones, Christian overtones; there's the thorn tree...

Oh, yes, so there is...

There's the sacrifice of Cat...

Yes! so there has! Oh God, I've only just this moment realised that! I know that in the garden at the end of that book I slipped into a sort of deeper mode, I was very conscious of that, and it worried me in case it didn't marry with the slightly less deep mode of the rest of the book, but yes you're dead right. Damn it! I'm turning into C.S. Lewis!

That's exactly it! It's like Aslan on the stone, Cat's tied down like Aslan.

I never thought of that! I didn't intend that, but I suppose again the religious upbringing...

Your grandfather?

My grandfather, yes, the preacher. Do you know he preached entirely in Welsh and I never understood a word, but on the other hand I used to have dreams in which I was deeply sinful and a panel would slide aside in the wall, and there would my Grandfather be, and he'd look like a prophet, and say "you're all damned!'' as it were, or more than that, authority and guidance, all that's most austere about religion, and I suppose it runs very deep. I think what one would call a religious experience is probably the most valuable anyone in the human race can have.

Whatever the religion happens to be.

Whatever the religion happens to be.

Is Time City heaven, keeping on the religious line?

No, Time City is Oxford.

Is it?! Is Oxford your idea of heaven?

No, no. If you notice, that although Time City is nice, it doesn't do anything. All it does is have ceremonies! It's a sort of enormous long set period in which nothing particularly happens.

That's interesting, because... you don't have a right to live in Time City, it's not an automatic thing to live in Time City, like heaven, you have to earn the position.

This is where I'm quite clear that the religious thing doesn't totally apply. It really is the slightly arid and uncaring life of the intellect. After all, they don't care. They go out and they push other people about in this uncaring sort of way, and it takes Vivien to point out to them that this wrong, that they need to do otherwise.

It was that sort of separateness and dispassionate control...

Oh God, you have a dreadful view of heaven, you do, you do!!

I don't know, but there is that... outside, heaven is outside and presumably has some sort, the authority has some sort of control. Oh, maybe I do!!

Then you get back to Faber John, he was intended to be a sort of, at least a demi-god.

But at the same time he's an everyman, too.

Yes, he's an everyman, this is true. But raised to the demi-god status. I was meaning to suggest Wayland Smith and those kind of artisan gods, people of strength and artifice, and a creator.

Something else that really intrigues me, and maybe it's an observation and nothing else, but I've noticed a few times, and maybe it comes back to your blurring of the absolutes, how it's the baddy who points out something really good, really important and something to aim for. Mrs Sharp says "If a person has a gift they deserve to have it developed." And she's quite right.

Only about the wrong person!

Yes, and she wants the money... but you can't argue with the statement itself.

No, you can't, this seems to me to be one of the things baddies do, you've met these people who produce these really truely convincing arguments, this seems to be an absolute constant about baddies, whether in my books or people you meet. And they produce these wonderfully convincing arguments, and they are absolutely dead right, except you know it's all for their own ends, and they're dead wrong too. I think I've probably done that more than once, actually.

The other one is Mr Nostrum, who talks about opening the ways to other worlds, that's wonderful, that's what you're doing, you're opening the way to those other worlds, those possibilities and so on.

I know, but he's a crook! This is what the baddies do, watch out for somebody who produces this ultimate truth, because they must have something they feel they can gain by it! There's a quote from, is it Virgil or something; I fear the Greeks, particularly when they are bringing gifts! That's the kind of thing I was meaning to say; watch it kids, watch it!

It intrigued me, because these people that I was deeply suspicious of kept saying these really good things, and interesting things.

It doesn't mean that you should be suspicious of the thing, but of the person saying it.

Frequently I think there are little details that seem to suggest "don't take things at face value"; that happens to Christopher all the time, "don't take things at face value." Even down to that innocent comment about one of his mother's visitor's; "Is she a Witch?" It's all about appearances and so on, and probably she is!

I think she is, actually. Particularly with her chicken legs. I meant really to imply that she probably was very much a witch. She comes from this very powerful family of enchanters, I think, she has to be.

Christopher and the question of superficiality; Mama is a "Beauty", and that's about all Mama is. He learns so much in those alternate worlds that no-one teaches him in his own world.

This is very important. I just hope that enough children pick up on this, because you do learn taking things away to your own imagination and chewing on them. Even if you don't know you are, even if you are just as it were fantasizing, you are telling yourself things.

So fantasy to you is important then because it overs that opportunity... Last question. Doubles. I adore them!

Yes, so do I actually!

I haven't worked them all out.

I've got a lot one way or another, haven't I.

I wonder if I've found more than you realised!

I bet you have!!

I sometimes think, "Oh, I'm making that up, that's not really what's going on there."

But to me, again, it's the possibilities and the choices. If you look at Janet and Gwendolen, they're so similar, there's so much those girls have in common, but they've made different choices about how they're going to use their vitality, their determination, and all the rest of it.

That's right. Janet comes out, at this stage in her life anyway, with a lot of slightly silly talk, but this is vitality.

That's right, you're dead right, yes.

Thank you for all of that!

Well, thank you! This is very interesting, it's very rarely I get to talk this deeply about what I do, people telling me things I've done, which... you're so right about that garden, My God! And I never saw it!

I felt a bit uncomfortable asking, because I know authors are asked so often, and I think a lot of children's authors are asked so often particularly. I see that with my work, that there are constantly demands on people's time and energy. Victor Kelleher, actually, I rang him earlier on this year to ask him if he'd speak at one of our functions, and he said "Quite frankly Judy, I am fed up to the back teeth with talking about my own work, I just want to go and write."

Well, this is one of the funny things, it's much nicer if somebody asks me questions, I find, and you'd probably find that he'd find the same. But if I have to develop something, spin it out of my own entrails, I find myself getting terribly self-conscious about what I'm doing. I don't mind at all you asking me this, because it's discoveries. I do mind doing too much of telling people what I do, because it makes me A. self-conscious and B. feel very dishonest, because if I say it, I'm very often approximating, just in order to be clear, and then because I say it, it then becomes absolute, and then I feel, Oh My God, this is not true, I'm living a lie, I do not actually write books in this way that I've been telling people. Which is not at all actually true, it's just a feeling I get, so I do find that I also have to be careful to do it not very often.

Well, thank you for doing it tonight.

Well, I haven't done it for a long time, and it's about time I did.

Do you like going back over your work and re-thinking it through?

Mmmmm! Because it fascinates me to find all the things that I've actually said that I haven't during the first writing picked up on. And you can say, "yes, I did mean that absolutely and entirely, though at the time I didn't notice I was saying it."

I wondered, because I loathe re-reading anything I've written.

Oh, this is a shame, I quite like doing it actually.

This is part of my problem; this is why it's taken me 18 months to... and I still haven't finished the thesis!

18 months is not long, actually, as theses go, you're being quite quick.

I find that I'll work on something and I won't want to go back to re-write and re-think and edit, because I just don't want to read it again. Partly it's embarrassing.

Yes, it is you squirm, I know what you mean. You don't have to keep doing that, why don't you adopt my way of doing things, which is one grand revision when you've finished, do the lot together.

I think my problem has also been that because I've had to work part-time and sometimes full-time, I've been doing it in bits, and then to leave something and then go back to it...

It gets very messy, yes. It's not a good way to work, that. I hate working in bits, I must say. One of the things I always require is swatches of time, and I do get quite unscrupulous about acquiring swatches of time, and pretend I'm busy, and things like this, so that I do have this time, in which I can go right the way through. I think it is important, continuity, I really do.

©Judith Ridge 1992