Charlie Mackesy

I don’t think I ever decided to write the book. It seemed to drip feed from somewhere within me over a year and a half. My inspiration for the book was probably a desire to say things that I thought really mattered. I think in my life I’ve often felt frustrated with conversations that don’t really touch on anything important. Many people said it wouldn’t make a book because there is no real narrative, but in the end, I realised that the narrative was the continual conversation they seemed to be having. The book was as much a journey of my own, as the journey the four characters went on. When it was finally printed in physical form, I was as surprised as anybody. I still look at it and feel quite amazed. I’ll always be grateful for the honest friends I have, who helped me write it.

All different parts of us. The Boy is the child in us that questions everything, the Horse is the wise, deep soul of us, the Fox represents the bit of us that’s been hurt and is shy because of it, and the Mole is the bit of us that’s very hungry for everything – particularly things that we can get a taste for. So they all represent different parts of us, or me.

Hugely so, you can trust them, you can really deeply love an animal and yet they’ve never said a word to you, which says a lot for silence. There is a purity to animals that human beings seem to have lost. We have so much to learn from them. I think being brought up on a farm I spent a lot of time with dogs and sheep and horses and cats and rabbits and you name it, wildlife. I spent huge amounts of time in the evenings not watching television but sitting on the hillside just staring. Every night I’d walk for miles, I remember, across the Northumbrian hillside, just sitting and watching badgers walk across the field or watching foxes chase rabbits. All of it fascinated me, and it fascinated me a bit more than people did if I’m honest, that whole world, it was a world you could enter and be part of.

I have been continually surprised. I hear from people; they write to me and email me with their stories and experiences with reading the book. So possibly, my work helps people communicate with each other about what they fear and how much they need each other and sometimes when it’s said in a picture, it’s easier somehow. For me it continues to be a monumental privilege that I could have helped anyone at all in such a way.

I mentioned in the introduction that the book is for anyone, whether they are eight or eighty, but what I did not expect was that eighty-year-olds would be reading it alongside their eight-year-old grandchildren. For me this is the dream. I think what I enjoy most, is when I hear from people who have interpreted the book in a way that I had not intended. They find messages in it and understand it in ways that are unique to them. I think obviously there is an emphasis on kindness, connection, shared vulnerability, humour, that kind of thing and I also hope that in these times it encourages people to worry less about the storm and the big things that are out of their control and focus more on the people they really love. If I had to answer that question directly, I hope they would feel kinder, braver and more hopeful.

My friends. Everything to do with learning how to love friends and be there for people and have them be there for you. In the book there is a question, what do you think success is? And the answer is to love and I really believe that. I suppose more directly with the book, the greatest success has been reading the responses from people about how some of the drawings have made them feel. Not least a few who have chosen against taking their own lives because of a drawing or two, that fills me with a sense of relief and purpose and profound privilege that you can make a few marks on a piece of paper that help people stay alive I suppose. That is pretty moving to me.

Yes, I really hope so. I think there is more to say with them, so I hope so.

I’ve always drawn. My earliest memories are of drawing and drawing horses when I was about four or five years old. I just got started on my own, just drawing what I saw when I was a child, and it was a place to escape. I still don’t think I’m an artist, I still think every day I’ll have to do a proper job tomorrow. I just decided to start drawing because it helped me. Like Forrest Gump, I didn’t stop. So it’s quite a strange way to start, I suppose.

No, I tried to go to Art College once and I left after a week. I don’t know why, I just didn’t really feel that connected to what they were doing. I had a strange feeling that if I stayed there I’d give up making art. I didn’t want whatever I had to be crushed. The process of expression is very important to humans – it’s important we all try find some way of expressing ourselves – it really matters that what we feel inside has a voice.

I’ve had a few different studios over the years, from industrial units to the ground floor of an Old Victorian house – where I am now. It’s covered in ink, paper, books, and half-finished things. Drawings stuck all over the walls. I like being surrounded by visual stimulation and half-finished drawings. I think in one room alone there are about twenty-thousand drawings in piles and in draws. I like seeing process. I like seeing thinking in art and in literature, I like being surrounded by symbols of process and beauty and life and energy. Sometimes I’ll find a drawing I started a year ago and then carry it on and finish it. Sometimes I’ll look at a drawing I did ten years ago and think how on earth did I do that.

My favourite artist is probably one who influenced me most when I was little, an author and illustrator called Edward Ardizzone, who wrote books like Tim All Alone and Tim at Sea, they are very emotive, hand-drawn, beautifully written stories about a boy called Tim. When a book gets under your skin when you’re little, it stays there, it just goes under your ribs, into your heart, and it stays. There was also a film called The Black Stallion that I watched repeatedly when I was younger, over and over again about a boy and a horse who are shipwrecked on an island and how they survive. A lot of the drawings have come from the inspiration of the boy and the horse on the island when they are alone, and the affection they had for each other when they were just playing. There was a scene in the film where they just charge up and down the beach, just for the sheer joy of it. It stayed with me. One of the pages of the book is ‘Doing nothing with friends is never doing nothing, is it?’ So that is where all that comes from.

Persevere, always. I think we are very hard on ourselves. Some days – as with everyone – things come together and then on other days it’s exasperating. I’ve thrown many drawings in the bin when they refuse to cooperate. I know with me I tend to give up quite quickly on things. But just accept your mess, accept your mistakes and know that every mistake you make is a journey to not making a mistake the next time. So for other artists I would say don’t give up, look at other artists, go to museums, whoever really moves you, and study them.