FRANCESCA SIMON

But just when I was starting out and writing picture books, that was absolutely the next question, was when are you gonna write for adults? You know, you’ve got your training wheels on, and when are you gonna take those wheels off and get going on a big girl bike?

Hello, I’m Laura Shavin, and this is The Offcuts Drawer, the show that looks inside a writer’s bottom drawer to find the bits of work they never finished, had rejected or couldn’t quite find a home for. We bring them to life, hear the stories behind them, and learn how these random pieces of creativity paved the way to subsequent success. My guest this week is Francesca Simon, a name that will be familiar around the world to parents, children, and anyone who’s spent any time with children in the past 25 years. Since 1994, when her most famous creation, Horrid Henry, first saw the light of day, over 22 million books about him have been sold and read by or to children in 29 countries and counting. Yet the 25 story books about Henry, younger brother, Perfect Peter, and their friends and family make up less than half of her output. She’s written picture books and early readers for younger children, including her latest book, Two Terrible Vikings, which was published earlier this year. And The Monstrous Child, the third book in her Mortal God series for young adults has been turned into an opera that was recently performed at the Royal Opera House in London. And there is talk of yet more musical collaborations in the pipeline. Intriguing. Francesca Simon, welcome to the Offcuts Drawer.

Thank you. Thank you. I’m looking forward to opening that drawer.

Now, before we start, you and Henry, Horrid Henry, have, I think it’s fair to say, kind of superstar status within the world of children’s literature. Is it sort of like the cliche of Hollywood and reality TV celebrity? People may not recognize your face, but when they find out who you are, are you a little bit mobbed and nagged for selfies and chased down the street?

Not exactly chased down the street, but it’s always very unexpected who gets very, very, very excited.

Oh, really?

Well, it depends. If you have children of the right age, you get very excited. I’ve had BBC Foreign Correspondents start shaking with excitement and saying, can I just call my children? And I remember meeting Anne Enright after she just won the Booker Prize and being kind of in awe. And Anne Enright went, oh, Francesca Simon, we have to have a selfie. My children just aren’t going to believe this. Oh my God, it’s Francesca Simon. So that was a little unexpected. I believe Jeanette Winterson once fell to the floor. That I wasn’t expecting either.

Was she genuflecting?

No, she was just doing a full on the floor bow. So that was a little unexpected. I didn’t think Jeanette Winterson would be doing that. But no, I mean, it’s kind of wonderful that children get very excited about a book and about meeting an author. It’s not because they’ve seen me on TV, it’s because they’ve loved the stories. And I always enjoy talking to kids about that. But authors are really lucky in that our faces aren’t generally well known. So you can walk around very anonymously.

Okay, well, let’s get started with your first off-cut. Can you tell us please what it’s called, what genre it was written for and when it was written?

Well, this is an outtake from one of the Horrid Henry books and I wrote it around 2011.

Horrid Henry’s Allergies.

Achoo, achoo!

Perfect Peter’s nose was runny. His eyes were itchy. Mum put down her fork. Peter, are you all right? She asked. I’m fine, mumbled Peter. He scooped up another fork full of tomato and swallowed. Dad put down his glass. You know, I think Peter might be allergic to tomatoes, said Dad. Oh no, said Peter. I love tomatoes. Peter, no more tomatoes for you, I’m afraid, said Mum. Perfect Peter looked upset.

Dad, I’m not allergic to all vegetables, am I?

He asked.

I can still have Brussels sprouts and spinach, can’t I?

Of course, Peter, just tomatoes. Perfect Peter beamed.

That’s good, because vegetables are my very best food. I was really worried I wouldn’t be able to eat all my favourites again.

Horrid Henry was outraged. It was so unfair. Why should Peter have all the luck and be allergic to tomatoes? Just think, to be allergic to vegetables. Horrid Henry pretended to sneeze. I’m allergic to, said Henry, to all vegetables.

Ah, lovely stuff. I remember this sort of thing from reading to my kids. So why was this not included? Do you have a word limit when you write Horrid Henry books?

Well, you know, listening to this, I’m thinking, why didn’t I include this? I think that I just couldn’t think of a story. It seemed like a funny idea because I know people who are allergic to tomatoes. But I couldn’t really see the story going anywhere.

Not without someone going to hospital or dying of anaphylactic shock.

You know, I wrote it and then I thought, well, this story is Horrid Henry’s allergy. You know, I have probably, I still have a notebook with probably 50 stories that I never wrote. I mean, they’re just titles or ideas. And this was one of them. So sometimes, you know, I try something out.

And so that wasn’t a clip from anything that was no speculative idea.

It was a speculative idea. That’s a good way of putting it for a story that kind of never went anywhere because it never seemed to develop beyond, oh, I’m allergic to vegetables. I always like the stories to have a bit more depth than that, you know, to work on more than one level. So, you know, it’s funny stuff. I mean, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it.

So 25 books. But you finished now, haven’t you? Your 25th Horrid Henry book Up, Up and Away. Is that the actual last Horrid Henry story?

Well, that’s 25 books and 100 stories. And I was going to stop at 24, but there was something quite unsatisfactory about 96 stories. Something very pleasing about 25 books, 100 stories. It was also the 25th anniversary of Horrid Henry.

Oh, gosh, yes.

In fact, I really enjoyed writing that last book because a few years had passed and it just felt so kind of lovely to jump back in the water and-

A little bit of a reunion.

Yeah, it was just, it felt like a very nice way to complete it because I’ve always been very concerned that the stories continue to get better and not worse. I think sometimes when people keep writing things, you can really see a difference between the newer stories and the older stories. And I very much wanted to stop at a point where I still thought the stories were excellent and that you couldn’t think, ooh, what happened here? They used to be so good. And now, oh, I see, yes. Because it’s easy to just pretend to write them. You can just have any situation, something awful happens, goodbye. And I like working a bit harder than that. But yes, that is going to be it.

That’s interesting you say that you came back after a gap. Obviously, you’ve grown a year or so. But Horrid Henry conceivably hasn’t. He’s exactly the same age, I presume. Have you ever thought about making him slightly older? How old is he, by the way? How old is Horrid Henry?

Well, I never say because the readership of Horrid Henry is everything from like age four to 18. And so I never say, I mean, in my head, he’s about eight. He’s a kind of a perpetual eight, but like William Brown. No, I’ve never wanted to age him. I think he and Peter exist in this kind of special plane where they will forever be fighting over who has the remote and who gets to sit in the good side of the car. And if they were older, they wouldn’t have the same battles.

Right, well, time for another off cut now. Tell us about this one.

This is a story I wrote in 1965 called The Enchanted Panther.

Once upon a time, there lived a huntsman who lived in the forest with his wife and his only daughter, Angela. Angela was unusually fair with merry blue eyes and golden hair as sparkling as the sun. One day, this huntsman was going out for his usual daily hunting. His daughter ran up to him and said, Father, please bring me the first thing you catch. But child, her father protested, it may be a timid hare or a fierce lion for all we know. But her father loved her dearly and soon gave in to her desires, but asked what had imposed upon her to ask such a thing. Angela replied, last night, I dreamt that a prince came to me and said that I alone could break his enchantment. Then he asked me to ask you what I have just asked you.

I love that ending. That is, if ever an ending spoke of mom’s calling, time for tea, all right, whatever. It’s just, and he asked me to ask you what I have just asked you. I can’t even be bothered to repeat it. That’s hilarious.

It makes me laugh a lot. I was only 10. But the reason I chose this, well, there’s many reasons. First of all, I love fairy tales. I had the idea that I would write my own fairy tales, even though I can see exactly what has inspired this, which is obviously Beauty and the Beast. There’s many stories that have this setup, bring me a rose or bring me something dreadful. But what I particularly like about it is that I had, well, I used to start these stories and I never finished them. I’m always on it, people, to finish things. It’s really important to finish stories. Of course, I never did. I would do this setup and then that would be like, where’s the Panther?

I was going to ask, that was my next question. Where is this enchanted Panther who never gets a look in?

He does not get a look in. The other thing I particularly like is I had no idea what a huntsman did. So I like the idea of a huntsman just doing his daily hunting, like whatever that is. But I just like the ask, ask, ask because you think, okay, you mustn’t repeat. But I did choose this, I think, because fairy tales have had a massive impact on me. I mean, fairy tale and myth is something that I’ve been part of my writing for my entire life. So I’ve always been drawn to these stories. I’m very drawn to myth and they were my favorite books as a child, the Andrew Lang fairy tale books. So I think what I was doing, because I’ve seen a couple of the others, is that I would combine two or three different ones. But it is maddening that I didn’t write anymore. Because when I saw this, I thought, oh, I can’t wait to see what happens. You turn the page, nothing. And we never see the panther that he’s enchanted.

No, how he’s enchanted, very disappointing.

It’s extremely disappointing. Angela has let us down.

But still, it does say quite a lot. It does show quite a lot about you as a child possibly. Presumably, you were quite a reader yourself.

A massive, massive reader. We didn’t have a television till I was 10. In fact, I was 10 years old when I wrote this. I spent most of my time reading. I would read five or six hours a day because I really didn’t want to do anything else. So I would usually read two books a day. I was a member of three libraries. I read at lunchtime. I read whenever I possibly could. So yes, books were a huge part of my childhood.

Your father was a writer, wasn’t he?

Yeah. My dad writes plays and he was writing film at the time. He became a playwright later, but he was writing film scripts, which is why we lived in Malibu in California. I was certainly not a very typical California child. I think possibly maybe one of the reasons I gave her this sort of hair was because I was surrounded by blonde girls.

California girls, yes.

Blonde California girls and I have curly dark hair. But I’ve looked at the other stories I wrote and everybody seems to have golden hair. Nobody has curly brown hair. Possibly the Enchanted Panther does, but since we-

We’ll never know. Well, moving on now, let’s have your next off-cut.

Now, this is an article I wrote on spec in 1980 for the LA. Herald Examiner and the Guardian called Transition.

As Scrooge observed, the spirits did it all in one night. When Jim Callahan’s government was defeated, Maggie Thatcher, complete with cabinet, Dennis and pots and pans, was installed at 10 Downing Street the following morning. But in America, it takes a bit longer. Though the presidential election is held in early November, the new government isn’t sworn in until the 20th of January A superficial analysis might conclude that a 10-week transition period is necessary because there is no shadow government in the US and the president-elect needs time to assemble his cabinet, meet with congressional leaders, appoint ambassadors and reassure rival interest groups. Actually, the changes at the top are cosmetic. One set of democratic professionals move out, while a group of Republican pros move back. Henry Kissinger, Caspar Weinberger and Al Haig, like many of the Reagan team, are old faces from the Nixon Ford years, while the rest are well-known Republican establishment figures. Assembling a new government is a snap. It’s getting a new house and household together, which takes time. The significant changes aren’t taking place in the West Wing offices, but in the master bedroom. And the name on everyone’s lips is Ted Graber. Ted Graber is Nancy Reagan’s interior designer, known in London for refurbishing the American Embassy in 1969. And together they are struggling over the real decisions in Washington. Whereas Reagan has already chosen his entire cabinet, Ted Graber points out that he and Nancy haven’t made our first decision as to colour and fabric. With the largest transition team in history to help him reshuffle the top jobs, Reagan had time to personally select the first family to be’s holiday meat from a deep freeze and thousand oaks. Nancy couldn’t do it. She was much too busy pouring over designs and pondering those critical decisions she and she alone must make. It’s a lonely job. No wonder the president-elect looks so relaxed and the first lady to be looks so harried. She’s got 14 rooms and seven and a half baths to redecorate. Can she do it all before the 20th of January?

Now this seems quite apposite for some reason. I mean, obviously the recent election was quite a while ago now, but I suppose because the eyes of the world were particularly on the White House this time, it feels like, oh gosh, that’s really, really topical.

Oddly enough, yeah.

So you went to university and then you went on to be a journalist. So this was written when you were actually working as a journalist or were you trying to get into journalism?

I was trying to get into journalism and I was just very struck by how totally hilarious it was that, you know, I think Margaret Thatcher came in in 79. Am I right? Yeah, just that the speed with which the British government changes over. And also Nancy Reagan was just being so outrageous, you know, wishing out loud that the Carters would move out sooner so she could redecorate. You know, couldn’t you just clear your offices so we can get in there? I just thought there was something very, very funny about these people coming in. And yes, it was interesting to read it. Essentially, yeah, it’s 40 years later. Because of course, this is a funny transition about can you get out so I can match some wallpaper?

Yes, if only that had been the case this time.

If only that had been the case this time around, exactly. So it was an interesting time to reread this article. But I wrote this on spec because I was trying to get commissions. I was living in London and I thought it would be just fantastic if the LA. Herald, which in fact no longer exists, would let me write some arts pieces from London. So I gave this to them as a sample of my work. I didn’t really expect them to publish it and they really did like it. And I did in fact get commissions off it. But when I tried to get it published in England, that’s when I learned about things having to be topical. I think that it was too late that I think because the election had happened or Reagan was already installed. But again, they liked the piece. So it in fact was a good calling card. And I just remember how much fun I had writing it. Yeah. I mean, the other thing is that journalism changed. And I think it’s why I did very well as a freelance journalist because newspapers were just starting to get interested in having pieces that were both kind of had meat on them but were written in a very easy, breezy style. You know, before there was a much bigger divide, you know, low brow and high brow. And I was able to kind of combine the two.

But what brought you to London in the first place? Why were you writing in the UK?

Well, I’d been at Oxford where I’d done a second BA and it was really more that I didn’t know what to do. I was interested in writing but I didn’t know what. And what happened was that I decided I’d just spend a year in London. I was teaching English as a foreign language. And while I tried to decide what to do, and my flatmate at the time who was a friend from Oxford had a piece published in The Guardian. And I read it and I thought, oh, I write better than this.

I know it’s true.

I don’t really shine brightly in this anecdote. I just thought, I write better than this. And I started trying to get pieces published but I’d never written any. The first piece I ever had published was in The Sunday Times. I’d never written for a school paper. I’d never done anything. But it was just more reading my flatmate’s article and thinking, well, you know, I can do this better. Why don’t I try? And I did. But I really loved being a journalist. A journalist friend said to me once as a critic, John Lahr, that being a journalist was great because it was about getting your education in public. Essentially, you got paid to find things out. And I did really enjoy being a journalist.

Sorry to interrupt, but if you’re enjoying the show, please do subscribe to The Offcuts Drawer, give us a five-star rating, leave a review, tell your friends about it. All that stuff’s really important for a podcast like this. And visit offcutsdraw.com for more details about the writers and actors, and to find out about future live shows. Thanks for your support. Now back to the interview. Interestingly, as you stayed in Britain to write for British papers, and you’ve written Horrid Henry, for example, sorry to keep bringing him back, but Horrid Henry is a British character. And he’s written very much in the British vernacular. Yes. So was that a difficult decision to make? Or did it just happen? Was it just coincidence that that’s how it turned out?

I mean, I was writing for American papers. I wrote for American Vogue. I wrote some things for the New York Times. And I wrote a lot for the LA Herald, as well as writing for British papers. With Henry, I made a definite decision to sound British. It was really because I was living here. The year kind of stretched out. And by the time I decided that I thought I was gonna stay in England, I met my husband in 1983. We got married in 1986. So I’ve lived here much longer than I ever lived in America. And it wasn’t that hard. I still make mistakes. I still call pharmacies, drugstores. And I do get confused about pavements and sidewalks and boots and trunks. I do make those mistakes. But my friend Miranda Richardson, who recorded all the Horrid Henrys, has got a brilliant ear for things. And she would just pick me up on stuff. No, it’s in there. It’s not on, it’s in. So I would make corrections, you know, kind of, I always let her read them before we recorded. So I could change them.

So it wasn’t that you’ve gone, I’ve decided I want to represent British children rather than American children or international children.

Not at all. Though, you know, I think Henry is read all over the world. And one of the things I’ve learned is that actually, if you want something universal, it’s quite a good thing to make it very particular and specific. I mean, I always loved reading about British children when I was growing up in America. I liked E. Nesbitt and I loved the Mary Poppins books. I didn’t really think about it that much. Henry is written in a very natural way for me. And people would correct the odd Americanism. But he’s definitely British, very specifically, middle class and British.

And you think that’s contributed to his great success? If he’d been more generic, it wouldn’t have worked so well, perhaps?

Well, I’m not sure.

I mean, he’s obviously an archetype. But I mean, Henry and Peter are like Cain and Abel. I mean, what I’m writing about is universal things, families and sibling rivalry and parental favouritism. Those things occur all over the world in all cultures, all backgrounds, because Henry’s fans include everybody, boys, girls and children from a huge and diverse backgrounds. And they all very much identify with him.

OK, next offcut, please. What’s this one?

This is called The Wind Blue. And it’s an unpublished picture book I wrote, I wrote in 2002.

Heat up, my darling, or the wind will blow you away, said the mother.

Mother and baby absorbed in each other.

Ella went to the window and opened it. A great gusting wind blew through the house, swept up the baby and whirled him away. I’ll be happy now, thought Ella. It’ll be like before he came. But sadness seeped into the house. The mother stared out the window, shut up tight. The father cried. Winter scene. Ella tugged on her mother’s skirt. Mother, I’m here, she said. The mother stared at the window and said nothing. She’s angry, thought Ella. She’s angry with me, and she wished that the baby had never ever come. The snow melted, and the little girl wandered through the silent house. What had it been like before? Ella could hardly remember, but the house felt cold and empty without him. Maybe he’ll come back, said Ella. The father hugged her. Maybe, he said. That night, Ella had a dream. She saw the baby laughing as he bounced on the billowing wind. The wind carried him through lands of burning heat, then over mountains covered with ice, across oceans which sprayed his face with salt. At last, the wind blew him to the palace of the wind guards, where he stayed asleep and dreaming in a cool white bed, while around him the breezes whispered and murmured. The wind blew. Ella ran to the window and flunk it open. Come back, she cried.

Come back.

Come back.

And in the morning, when she woke, he was home.

The end. Note the style of illustration should be fairy tale, not realistic.

So what happened to this? Did you submit it for publication?

This is an interesting one because a lot of publishers were interested in this. But I think people were scared of it as well.

Why?

Well, it’s kind of a disturbing story. I mean, it works on one level, which is about basically there’s a new baby. The older child wishes the baby was gone. The child, I think is in hospital, has got sick and the girl blames herself for this. But it also works on a fairy tale level of, you know, like those almost those Russian fairy tale drawings is how I imagined it. And the child is just go away and the child literally vanishes. So there were a number of people interested, but ultimately, I think they didn’t quite know what to do with it. It’s an unusual picture book. I mean, it does resolve itself. I’ve always really liked it. And I’m sorry that it hasn’t been published, because I think it’s a very interesting way of acknowledging how awful it is when a new baby comes. And just the idea that you could just wish the baby away. But of course, the parents are so devastated. And there is something very sad about it, you know, just hearing it again, it is quite powerful.

Yes, yes, it’s slightly bleak.

It is bleak. And so maybe it’s too bleak. But I really like it.

Now, I have friends who often say they like to write for children. And what I think they mean is they want to write this sort of picture book, a simple 50 words or less story that will become a bestseller. And do you encounter this attitude a lot from the civilians, shall we say?

Well, it was something that worried me when I first started writing for children, because I had never thought about writing for children. And then my son was born in 1989. And I instantly was flooded with ideas. I mean, just like overwhelmed with ideas. And I thought, gosh, am I one of those people who just imagines they can write for children? Sometimes, I think that people really get confused between the stories that they tell their children that their children love, you know, about their child’s adventure with a dear little squirrel. And what an actual because quite frankly, your child will like any story that you tell them. And if you have if you name the main character after them, you’re done. But picture books are actually very, very sophisticated. If you think about them, they’re like films, and you have to decide what story do the pictures tell, what story do the words tell, and what space are you allowing for the audience. And you’re balancing all of these things.

And presumably, the success of a picture book depends just as much, if not more in some cases on the illustrator.

Oh, yes. I mean, that’s the other thing is that picture books are led. The best picture book should always be led by the pictures, not the words. I mean, your job is really to be under the pictures. There’s nothing more boring than the little girl wore red dress, cue picture of little girl in red dress. The story needs to be told on two levels. I mean, the best ones are when the words say something and then the pictures say something else like Rosie’s walk. Do you remember Rosie’s walk about the hen going for a walk outside her hen house and completely oblivious to the chaos and the danger? So the story is, you know, Rosie did this and Rosie did that and then behind her, she’s knocked over a beehive and the bees are coming and she just doesn’t notice. Probably because they’re short, people can sort of imagine themselves writing it, but they are hard to write really well.

Yes, that’s what I would have thought. I hear it all the time, various people who go, I’m going to give up my day job. Do you know, I’ve always fancied writing for children, I can do this.

Yeah, I mean, when I first started out, the question when people had asked what I did and I said I write children’s books, the next one was, oh, when are you going to write for adults? Like I was sort of in the, I was in the paddling pool and when would I get to the big girl pond? And after Harry Potter and of course the massive success of those books in 97 plus, and then all these adult writers started trying to write for children, that question just vanished.

I’m surprised they asked you, frankly, for Horrid Henry, though.

Well, this was before, you know, Horrid Henry didn’t, I wrote the first one in 1994 and it didn’t become really popular in bookshops until book five. People always imagined book four, Horrid Henry’s Knits, people always imagined it was this overnight success. It was a very, very slow success that depended on teachers and independent booksellers. But just when I was starting out and writing picture books, that was absolutely the next question was, when are you going to write for adults? You’ve got your training wheels on and when are you going to take those wheels off and get going on a proper book?

Well, time for another off cut now. What have we got?

This is an article that Cosmopolitan magazine bought from me in 1984, but ended up not publishing. And it’s called The Tyranny of Chic.

Those shoes go very well with what you’re wearing, encourages the salesgirl. Chic in the identikit calf-length trousers and wrinkled cotton blouse all Paris is sporting that week. Which bit? The stain pink and grey pastel skirt that I suddenly notice is three inches too long. The ruffled white blouse favoured by Lady Diana before the earth’s crust cooled. My tatty handbag whose every defect Francoise’s x-ray eyes detect the moment I creep into the boutique. I buy the shoes, I buy the two pairs of pink pop socks Francoise presses upon me. Then I flee back to my hotel room and lock the door where I can be dowdy in peace. You want to feel a frump? Go to Paris. You want to feel really frumpy? Stay near Saint-Germain. You’ve never truly suffered until you’ve strolled down that boulevard wearing your favourite Laura Ashley grey smock with white petticoat peeping through, you remember, the fashionable look about four and a half years ago and endured thousands of beady female eyes looking at you and hastily averting their gaze lest frumpiness be contagious. Paris is the frump’s nightmare. Heads may not swivel when I walk by at home, but at least maitre d’s don’t always sit me at the back behind a pillar lest my two narrow trousers give their brasserie a bad name. Worse, French women have nothing better to do all day than to sit in sidewalk cafes watching every other woman who walks by. But they don’t just look, they scrutinise, they inspect and they evaluate as they are scrutinised, inspected and evaluated. In Paris, le look is everything, and if you don’t have it, forget it. Learn from my experience, frumps. If you’re not to the man-a-born, do not go to Paris. So this article was written for Cosmopolitan, but they didn’t publish it. Do you know why?

I think because I think it’s possibly because of their advertising.

Goes against the whole ethos of the magazine, I imagine.

Yes, so it was funny, but it does kind of go against the ethos of the magazine. There was also, they thought I sounded a bit too knowledgeable about fashion to be a frump. But I think it was that sort of tension about the advertising and the clothes.

So did they set to you the subject or did you go and get it? I’ve come up with a great idea.

No, I came up with the idea. They liked it. They bought the article. But, you know, magazines like Cosmo buy massive amounts of articles that they have, like, in stock and they just never used it.

But if having your son hadn’t kickstarted your children’s writing career, where do you think you might be today as a writer?

That’s an excellent question because I think as a writer, you have to discover what it is that you’re good at writing. And if I hadn’t had Josh, I wouldn’t have discovered I was good at writing children’s books. I would never have written a children’s book. I’m absolutely convinced of that. I would never have written a children’s book.

Would you have written books though, do you think? Would you have gone on from journalism to novels?

Yes, possibly. But I was still kind of in the process of discovering what it is that I was good at writing because that was something that surprised me as well. I always assumed that if you were a writer, it meant you could write anything. It’s absolutely not true. Even people who write for kids, there’s certain age groups that really appeal to them. I really like writing for that Horrid Henry age group, six to eight, even though Henry’s audiences is much broader, but I fall into that really comfortably. It’s not that I necessarily try to, but there’s people who write for children who can’t write picture books. They just can’t get their words down enough because it’s hard to write for the Horrid Henry age group because you’ve got to have a modified vocabulary, but a sophisticated story. It’s quite hard to do. You find your natural place. My favorite novels to read are Victorian novels, but I’ve never tried to write a Victorian type novel, even though I love them. Big sprawling sagas across continents and multigenerations and continents. They’re just what I like to read. I can’t necessarily write.

Right. Well, let’s move on to your next Offcut Now. This one is?

This is The Scaries, which is an unpublished picture book from 2012.

Alice’s mum told her there were no scareys. Alice’s dad told her there were no scareys. But Alice knew perfectly well there were scareys. The scareys were horrible monsters who lived under Alice’s bed. They had long pointy tongues, black nails instead of teeth and hairy scary claws. Every night, the scareys got ready to sneak out and snatch her. But Alice knew that if she switched out her light and leapt into bed before 10 seconds were up, the scareys couldn’t hurt her. But this wasn’t enough to keep her safe. Snarled the scareys. So Alice chanted a magic spell. One, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, three times. Maw! Snarled the scareys. Alice lined up all her shoes in her wardrobe. Maw! Snarled the scareys. Alice made sure her duvet cover touched the floor evenly all round her bed. Maw! Or we’ll come and get you! Alice jumped from her chair into the middle of the bed. hissed the scareys. One night a terrible thing happened. Alice forgot to do her special jump into bed and just climbed in. Oh no!

How dare you forget the special jump!

Snarled the scareys. Don’t you ever forget to do it again, or we’ll come and get you! I won’t, said Alice. But the next night Alice tidied her books, lined up her shoes, chanted a magic spell, flicked the light switch and jumped from the chair, but didn’t arrange her duvet. The scareys started to shrink. You horrid little beast! Shrieked the scareys. We’re shrinking! Why didn’t you arrange the duvet? Because I didn’t, said Alice. The next night Alice didn’t tidy her books, line up her shoes, chant her magic spell, flick the light switch or do her special leap. Help us, Alice! Begged the scareys.

Please, just tidy the books.

We’re shrinking! No, said Alice. The scareys got smaller.

Please, chant the magic spell. Please, please, pretty please.

No.

Arrange the duvet. Just a teensy weeny little bit for all time’s sake. We’re shrinking!

No. The scareys got smaller and smaller and smaller. Just the special leap, they squeaked. No. Then Alice heard strange crying noises. Oh, stop that snivelling, said Alice. We thought you liked having us here, Alice, sobbed the scareys.

Why are you driving us away?

Poor scareys, said Alice.

That makes me laugh, although it’s a book about obsessive compulsive disorder, isn’t it?

It is.

It’s not just, I mean, I think all children have rituals. It’s actually more common than you might expect. If you get scared, you sort of want things in a certain way. So it’s more like a sort of propitiation to the gods. But a lot of children do this.

It’s a superstition, isn’t it?

A superstition and magic. If you get scared, the problem is that once you start these rituals, it’s very, very difficult to break it.

So was this book, did you submit it? It says unpublished.

Yeah, no, I did submit it. And you know, various publishers looked at it and they just said no.

Oh, did they say why?

They don’t always give a reason.

Because when I read this, I thought, I think it’s quite good.

I think it’s quite good, too.

Especially these days when everyone’s talking about mental health and children’s mental health.

You know, I was thinking, you know, I might try again to resubmit this somewhere, you know, to different editors, just I do think it’s, as far as I know, no one has done anything like this. No, I was thinking that the same, but you know, when I wrote this, I don’t know that mental health was really way up there.

No, well, it’s nearly 10 years ago, isn’t it now?

But I’ve always been interested in monsters and kind of, I’m very in touch with the emotions of children. I mean, I don’t have a particularly great memory for things that I said or were said to me, but I have a really good memory for the emotions. I think maybe some people thought it was too scary. Sometimes people don’t accept how frightened children are and that pretending it’s not there doesn’t actually help. But I just like the way it resolves itself too.

She’s quite heartless in the end, it turns out. Yeah.

Well, children are heartless. They’re definitely heartless. And just the scariest, they can only exist. They can only have power if she gives them power. So she gets more powerful and they get less powerful.

But she doesn’t take her power gracefully. She doesn’t use her power for good.

It wouldn’t be a book by me if she did.

Right. Well, we’ve come to your final offcut now. Tell us about this one.

Ah, now this is a scene that was cut from my opera, The Monstrous Child, for which I wrote the libretto, which was based on my book of the same name. And this was written in 2019.

Hell has landed in a dark howling wasteland by a glowing bridge which marks the boundary between the living and the dead. Hell sees Modgud standing by the glowing bridge. Modgud raises her arm to stop an unseen dead man.

Who’s that? A bridge? A way out? I could cross back to the world of the living.

Hell tries to cross the bridge and she can’t. She weeps in frustration and fury.

How did you sneak past me? You’re alive. Only the dead can cross my bridge. Why are you crying? Go away! Don’t touch me! Your name, your lineage. I’m Queen, by Odin’s decree. I am Hell, Queen of the Dead. Are you dead? Do I look dead? My name is Modgud. I guard the bridge. Once here, you can never leave. Your days and deeds are done. Let me go back. Let me go back! You can’t. You’ll get used to it, Queen. Everyone does. What do I do? Where do I go? What do I do? Where do I go? Where do I go? Who’s that? Embla, the first woman. Odin made a man and a woman from driftwood. He gave them life, but now her days and deeds are done. Can you believe it, corpses? I’m forced to rule you, Odin’s driftwood.

A dead man approaches barefoot, holding a bucket and axe. Grave goods clank behind him. Shadows slowly fill the theatre. Your name? Your lineage?

I was Helgi, son of son of Sigurd. Pass by, pass by. My days and deeds are done.

A dead woman approaches barefoot.

Your name?

Your lineage?

I was Thor, daughter of Magnus.

Pass by, pass by.

What a job, welcoming the ungrateful dead. At least they bring gifts. Gifts? What kind of gifts? Grave goods.

All for you.

My days and deeds are done.

My days and deeds are done.

My days and deeds are done. Where do we go?

What do we do?

What do we do?

Listen and learn, maggots. Where’s my tribute? I’m hosting you for eternity. I require payment. I have a pot.

I have a spindle. I have a jug. I have an axe.

Junk. I want gold. I want jewels. I have a bracelet.

I have a pot.

She kept my ring. The greedy cow.

My ivory comb. My bracelet. My arm ring. Where is it?

He kept my spear. I was a hero.

I shouldn’t be here. Why am I here?

Where do we go?

Where do we go?

What will you do now, Queen? I don’t know.

Goodness, where to start? Why opera of all the performance genres that your book could take? Why did you choose opera?

Well, as I was writing it, I became aware that this was a very operatic subject because it’s about love and hate and death and jealousy and revenge. And I just thought I seemed to be writing an opera, even though I knew almost nothing about opera and had barely seen one.

I was about to say, are you a fan or something?

I wasn’t at all, but I couldn’t escape from what I was writing. And a friend of mine, Gavin Higgins, is a fantastic composer. And I just gave him the manuscript and said, do you think this is an opera? And he said, yes. And I would love to do it. So of course, we just approached the Royal Opera House as you do. And what had happened was about two years previous, I had been introduced to John Ful James who was the Associate Artistic Director of the Opera House. He turned out to be a big Horrid Henry fan. And he said, oh, if you ever have an idea for an opera, get in touch. And I remember thinking, yeah, right, like I’m going to come up with an idea for an opera, an art form that I have no interest in and know nothing about. But yeah, sure, John. But I wrote to him and I said, you know, I hope you remember me, but I actually think I have a good idea. And he got back to me within, I think, 30 minutes and said, I’ve been hoping you’d be in touch. You could come in, and it all happened really quickly and kind of magically. The head of the opera house said he’d like to direct it. And they both kept saying to us, you do realize this doesn’t happen. You know, people approach us all the time and we always say no. You know, 99 times out of 100, we say no. So I had to write a libretto. And I just thought, well, okay, the worst thing that’s going to happen is that it’ll be terrible and I’ll be fired. So can I cope with that? And I thought, yes. And I was very lucky to be working with Gavin, who’s very, very theatrical and had a big input into the libretto. And it was just the best experience ever. The kind of thrill of being in the opera house, just seeing your work on stage, I just loved it. It was also an incredibly happy production. So many people within that production are working together now. Gavin and I have gone on to write other things. We’re hoping to work with our director again and come up with another opera. I’m close friends with the lead. It was just the conductor’s a friend. It was just a fantastic experience because one of the things I discovered, which I didn’t know if I would, but I discovered I really enjoyed collaborating, which I wasn’t sure that I would because I’m used to writing on my own and I’ve never wanted to write with somebody else. And, you know, one of the keys to writing a good libretto is to work really closely with your composer. And that doesn’t happen very often, but it makes a big difference. And it was absolutely thrilling and wonderful. And it turns out that I can write this, which I didn’t know if I could, but I can.

Is it an opera for, because it’s based on a children’s book that you wrote. Is it an opera for children?

No, not children. It’s for teenagers and adults. Again, my work tends to be pretty broad. It’s sort of all encompassing, I suppose. Adults enjoy Horrid Henry too.

But it’s not targeted from the opera point of view. Was it targeted as this is a young person’s opera?

Yeah, it was. It was aimed at young people, but a lot more adults came to see it. But we did get kids in.

When you say you’ve got plans for collaboration and more projects, is it again aimed at the younger audience?

No, no. Gavin and I have written a cantata for Two Singers, which was meant to be performed last year, but will be performed next year. It’ll have various premieres around the UK. And Monstrous is going to get another production, but it hasn’t been announced yet, but again, in Europe. We’re always hoping the Opera House will bring it back. But in terms of this scene, there was a chunk of this that we cut very late, which is one of the things you absolutely cannot do in opera, which I had to learn the hard way.

Were there tears?

Well, it was one of those things where it’s the point, you know, when Hel says, what a job welcoming the ungrateful dead. And then the dead, she says she wants gifts. And the dead say, I have a pot, I have a spindle, I have a jug, I have an axe. I loved this. This is my favorite scene in the opera. And Gavin had said, you know, I think it’s going on for too long. Nonsense, nonsense. It’s great. You know, how touching that these people are dead and this is what they have to offer. They have a pot, they have a spindle. This is all that’s left of their life. It’s so touching. And in rehearsal, you know, the producer came up to me and said, you know, Francesca, this scene is going on for too long. And the director said, you know, Francesca, the scene goes on for too long. So you know, when three people I respect say the scene’s going on for too long, so I cut it. But normally with opera, because the music is so interwoven, Gavin always says it’s like cutting a hole in a sock and the whole thing unravels. And in this case, with this scene, he went snip, snip, and just took it out. And I said to him, I guess that says something, doesn’t it? He said, Yep. He just felt it was unnecessary. But I do I do still love it. I mean, I understand that you wanted the scene to move on. But I just think it’s very touching. I was what gave me the idea was, was, I think it was I was at the British Museum. And, you know, you see these graves that are uncovered and the objects that people have in those graves. And this is what their life is reduced down to is a few broken pots. And that, you know, these are precious to these people. And of course, she rejects it because it’s not gold or silver. So I do still like it. But I, you know, if you’re working with other people, you occasionally have to give in. I once described how Gavin and I work together. And Gavin will say, you know, I think this scene needs to be cut. That’s our working relationship.

Yes, that’s quite how it should be.

Oh, it should. No, absolutely. Gavin has great instincts.

Right. Well, we’ve come to the end of the show. One final question. You’ve written now for various formats and the Horrid Henry has appeared not just in book form, but TV, film, theatre, radio. And of course, we’ve just heard about the opera. So knowing what you know now, would you have done anything differently at any point in your career?

Yes, I would have held on to the Horrid Henry rights with every bit of strength in my palsied grasp. Yes, I would never, you know, early on publishers put pressure on you to sign over rights to them.

Oh, you sign it over to your actual publishers?

Yeah, and then they can sell it on. Yes, and you should only give publishers book rights. So I kept all rights for the opera Monstrous Child. I have to say it was an absolute pleasure dealing with the rights holder, me. So yes, I would definitely, that is the one big mistake I made not to hold on to my Horrid Henry rights. But apart from that, no, I mean, I’ve been hugely fortunate in my career. I’m so lucky that I’ve been writing at a time when children’s books are given huge respect. And I’m just so fortunate that my books have done well and that they found readers all over the world, for which I’m immensely grateful.

Well, it’s been an absolute treat to talk to you, Francesca Simon. And we’re very grateful that you came and shared the contents of your off-cut straw with us.

Thank you so much for having me on the show.

The Offcuts Drawer was devised and presented by me, Laura Shavin, with special thanks to this week’s guest, Francesca Simon. The offcuts were performed by Emma Clarke, Keith Wickham, Rachel Atkins, Leah Marks, David Holt and Beth Chalmers, and the music was by me. For more details about this episode, visit offcutsdrawer.com, and please do subscribe, rate and review us. Thanks for listening.