Chris Riddell’s schooldays – “I used to play truant by sneaking off to the Tate Gallery”
Chris Riddell was all set for a path leading to academia, before an inspiring art master gave him ‘permission’ to choose a rather different course…
I went to what was then Archbishop Tenison’s Grammar School in Kennington, just opposite the Oval cricket ground. I was a shy, retiring type, to the extent that my form master once wrote in my school report, ‘Riddell is disturbingly quiet.’
I was a good student, quite industrious, but mainly because I wanted to blend in and not be noticed. Of course, that only served to attract attention and turned out to be not quite the winning strategy I thought it was.
My two brothers attended the same school – one was in the year below me, the other in the year above – and both built up considerable reputations as being sporty types you didn’t mess with. That meant I was completely immune to any sort of bullying, despite being very studious and what one might now term as a ‘geek’.
The school was very big on sport, but because I considered myself an ‘arty type’ I never wanted to join any teams. I actually used to truant during sports lessons and sports days, when I’d sneak across the river to the Tate Gallery and spend the afternoon there. I didn’t like breaking rules, but there were times when I just thought ‘No, I really must…’
I remember we had a psychotic physics master who used to throw his board rubber at us, and a music teacher who was fairly mild-mannered but highly strung. I remember him once thrashing a pupil who had climbed on to the school’s rather fine grand piano.
But standing out amongst them all was my art master, Jack Johnson. He was an inspirational teacher, but quietly inspiring. I was in the small group taking art A level, and we’d often simply sit with Jack during art classes, having cups of tea, chatting and looking through some books.
It was like meeting an artist in his studio – he himself had been trained in fine art and worked as a cartoonist for several newspapers, and had a huge influence on me.
He observed that I loved drawing and painting and suggested I apply to art school. All I could say at first was ‘…can I?’ The very idea went completely against everything the school had mapped out for me, but Jack simply explained that I could go to art school if I wanted to, and it turned out to be a transformative moment.
A bizarre choice
Pursuing a career in the arts was a bizarre choice back then, but it was the best thing I ever did – though these days, my younger self would have been better off training to do something in ‘cyber’, apparently…
The Goth Girl books I’ve done are a repository for various memories dating back to my school days – my fixations with Romantic poets, history and arcane sporting activities, among many other things.
More recently, I’ve illustrated a new edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which was a hugely influential book for me.
I’d pore over John Tenniel’s original illustrations endlessly, particularly the White Rabbit on the frontispiece. I opted to illustrate this version as if doing so for a contemporary author and went down a completely route for the most iconic characters – my Mad Hatter is a girl with long hair.
I’ve also compiled and illustrated a poetry anthology, Poems to Save the World, which reaffirmed my love for how words and pictures can work on a page.
I relish any opportunity to illustrate poetry, as it offers a way of getting inside a poem and illuminating it – and yet we have education ministers telling us there’s not a requirement for poetry to be included in the curriculum any more.
It’s a form that’s so important, so accessible in some senses, and so creative – I think we give up on that at our peril.
Chris Riddell is an author, illustrator and the political cartoonist for The Observer, and was the UK Children’s Laureate between 2015 and 2017; follow him on Instagram via @chris_riddell, on Twitter via @chrisriddell50 or visit chrisriddell.co.uk.
