Daily Info is always on the hunt for new family friendly books and so sat down with local author Kevin Thomson to chat about his new children's book Willy and Wally the Windscreen Wipers.
Daily Info: Tell us a bit about Willy and Wally the Windscreen Wipers.
Kevin Thomson: I wrote my first WW story more than 30 years ago as the script for a children’s TV show. It came from months and months of driving to work from Reading to London down the M4. To alleviate the boredom I used to make up word games involving parts of the car and TV sci fi characters. What a mash up. I had “deflector shields down” which referred to the sun visors and “warp factor 4 Mrs Sulu” referring to changing into top or 4th gear and accelerating the car. And then there was the alliteration of Willy & Wally the the Windscreen Wipers. I suppose I had the beginning of the list of characters. Next a simple story with a twist. It rang a bell as that’s the “formula” I’ve since spoken about. I made this crazy story into a TV script with a list of characters as best I could, keeping in mind I wasn’t yet a writer of children’s tales in any form. I remember the characters all had different accents e.g. Enery the Engine sounded like the owl in The Sword in the Stone - a little learned and professorial. Willy and Wally were from originally Birmingham then Newcastle.
I typed it out (these were the days before computers or the internet), put it in an envelope and sent it to the great BBC in London and a fairly short time later the great BBC in London rejected it.
I filed it under “failed valiant attempt” and it stayed in that file for over 30 years. Fast forward those same 30 years to when I became a grandad for the first time and my manuscript saw daylight again. Yes it was a manuscript now or soon would be. I looked it over, thought the basic storyline had merit and so decided to change it into an illustrated children’s story book remembering the TV version has been rejected.
DI: What do you hope the reader will get from this book?
KT: The book and hopefully subsequent books are for parents to read to their young children and older children to read for themselves. The alliteration makes it fun to read out loud. Almost like a set of tongue twisters and that makes younger children smile.
DI: How was it working with Elin Weresch on the illustrations? Did you find this added even more personality to the story?
KT: Elin is a great illustrator with many different styles she can call on. I remember seeing her initial illustrations of the two main characters and thinking this is going to be brilliant. I gave her the manuscript which was marked up with where I felt the illustrations should be and the rest was down to her. She took the job very seriously but had great fun coming up with the various characters and situations. Tiny, tiny spoiler alert, but it was Elin’s idea to give Horatio the Headlight a pair of sunglasses!
DI: Which children writers have influenced you?
KT: I tend to like the nonsense authors such as Spike Milligan and Edward Lear, plus I’m a big fan of Tintin!
DI: Are there more adventures planned for this pair?
KT: I’ve written another book with the same characters and the publisher wants to publish it. My ambition is to write lots of Willy & Wally books. Who knows I may hit my target of writing 25 of them. Hergé wrote 24 Tintin stories!
Willy and Wally, the Windscreen Wipers is out now at all good bookstores.