and our three fantastic children when they are home from university… Claire is 21 and studying Anthropology at Cambridge University. Twins, Tom and Maddy are 19 and they are extremely interesting too.

Tom is a really good artist and Maddy is a fantastic actress (Grab her fast, Hollywood!).

We also have a cat called Harrods

and a hamster called Skittle, who is hardly ever interesting at all, (although he ate a raisin yesterday.)

How long does it take you to write a book?

Cathy and I like to work on several different books at once, so I'm usually busy on a couple of funny things like the Seriously Silly Stories as well as something more serious like 'Stone Girl, Bone Girl ' or one of my art books. Other artists will illustrate some of the books so they won't take more than five or six months, but the ANHOLT’S ARTISTS books take about two years each because of the amount of research involved.

'Chimp and Zee' took almost four years to get right, so that's something of a record. It's not because we spend all day in bed, it's just that we like to get every word and every picture exactly right. Now you know why so many authors are old and wrinkly!