The Adventures of Bert: ‘A creative dialogue’

It is the summer of 2001. Allan Ahlberg is phoning Raymond Briggs.

Raymond, is that you? How are you?

Hang on, I’ll just switch the radio off – Woman’s Hour. Not bad – mustn’t grumble.

Good. Listen, we’ve got trouble. It’s this magazine, Books for Keeps . They want us to write something about The Adventures of Bert – the ‘creative process’ and all that.

Oh, yes – well that shouldn’t take long. What does Bert think?

He says we should do it – good publicity.

Mrs Bert?

She says do it.

Baby Bert?

He says, ‘Waaaa!’

Course he does, the little blighter. Hang on, I’ll just answer the door.

(Five minutes later)

Milkman. Wanted money – again!So what do we tell them?

Well we can hardly tell them the truth.

You’re right there … Hm.

So, I was thinking, how about this. I’ll say how I wrote these adventures and needed an illustrator, as usual, y’know, and anyway Quentin Blake was busy and Helen Oxenbury was busy, and Michael Foreman and Shirley Hughes, and I thought, well, there’s poor old Raymond Briggs there, all on his own down in Sussex …

Yeah – got it. And I’ll say… let’s see, I had a letter from a girl at Penguin asking if I’d illustrate a story by this new young author they’d got hold of, some foreign johnny, Allberk or something he was called – never heard of him.

Yes, that’s –

Hang on, haven’t finished yet. So anyway, turns out he’s not so young after all – been around ages – done loads of books, mostly remaindered. So now this Penguin girl was thinking maybe if they teamed him up with somebody like me, somebody successful, well, it might give his career a boost – Ha! – keep him out of the gutter.

Splendid – that ought to do it. Then all the magazine people need do is stick a few pictures round the edges.

Yeah. Hang on, I’ll just answer the door.

(Ten minutes later)

Jehovah’s Witnesses. Well, that sounds all right. What does Bert say?

He says he’s not bothered. He says as long as I know he wrote the words and you know he did the pictures and he and Mrs Bert get their fair share …

And what does she say?

She’s not bothered either.

Baby Bert? No, don’t tell me.

Anyway, listen, the good news is – he’s written the next one!

No!

Yes!

That’s quick. What’s it like?

Brilliant! Better than the first. He says he’ll probably do the pictures next week.

Excellent – Ha! – the ‘creative process’, y’can’t beat it. Hang on, I’ll just answer the door.

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The Adventures of Bert is published by Viking (0 670 89329 3) at £9.99.