Many of us might dream of moving away from our busy lives in the big city to find rural bliss in the countryside, and for local author Sue Lawrence, the move from London to Hampshire brought more than cleaner air and greener pastures.
Motivated by the change of scene and pace, Sue continued work on a project she’d begun in the city – a series of tales inspired by her elderly tabby cat, Harry titled “Harry: A Cat’s Tale”.
“I’ve had Harry since he was a kitten,” Sue says. “My son wanted a brother, and that’s how I came to get Harry. My son picked him – though I’m not sure if he picked Harry, or if Harry picked us! I’ve had him since he was about six weeks old, and he’s now 20 years old. He turned 21 in April. He’s more like a dog than he is a cat, really – over the years, Harry and I have become really good friends, and I guess if you have never had a cat or if you don’t know Harry, you couldn’t really imagine he could be the way he is. I take him for walks on the lead, and we walk around the village together. I basically talk to him the way I talk to my own son. He’s definitely a character, he knows what I’m talking about all the time. I always wanted a cat when I was younger. To be honest, he’s more of a family member than he is a pet.”
Sue’s first book, “Harry: A Cat’s Tale”, follows Harry as he moves into a new house and discovers a host of new friends on his adventures. As many great stories do, this one began with Sue making up stories for her son. Before they moved to Hampshire, Harry was an outdoor cat who would stay out all night, and Sue would entertain her young son, Asten, with made-up tales of Harry’s midnight adventures in the city. She had already written some of her first book before they left London, but when they moved to Hampshire the ideas for the stories really took shape and came alive. “I read loads of books to my son when he was growing up,” Sue explains, “but they were always very full on, very loud and noisy kinds of books, and I just wanted something that was very calm, that wasn’t really long so you could read it from start to finish without skipping any bits. I couldn’t find that, so I started writing it myself.”
Sue is originally from London, and she lived there for most of her life, but she moved to Hampshire to be closer to her mother, who lives locally. Now Sue and Harry live in the village of Sherfield on Loddon, and both seem to be thriving in their new environment. “Harry had never seen alpacas before, he’d never seen owls, or deer, or pheasants, so all of this was as new for him as it was for me,” Sue says. “But he loves it, he loves the country life, being retired, the slower pace. He’s been my support blanket, especially over the last few years with the lockdown. He’s got a little grumpier as he’s got older, but every time I take him to the vets, they just can’t believe that he’s almost 21 because he’s very young looking and he still flies around the house. He’s got such a gentle side to him, and everyone who meets him just falls in love with him because he’s got such a kind nature.”
The place where Sue and her son first lived was near a field of alpacas, and Sue took this image and worked it into her second book, “Harry: A Cat’s Tale – A Purrfect Day”. “Harry used to always sit at the bottom of the garden with his head through the fence and stare at the alpacas,” she remembers. “When I lived in London, you were lucky if you saw a pigeon, or maybe a fox late at night.”
Moving to Hampshire opened Sue’s eyes to the beauty of the countryside and kindled her imagination. Seeing pheasants wandering across her garden and owls perching on her gate were brand-new experiences, and she poured the beauty of her surroundings into her writing.
Sue’s favourite author is Beatrix Potter, and the imaginative stories and exquisite illustrations of Potter’s work were a huge inspiration to her as well. “I love everything about Beatrix Potter’s books,” Sue says. “I love the animals, I love the watercolours, I love the Lake District. I grew up with these stories, and I would imagine Harry meeting different animals and having conversations with them. The only thing I wish I could do differently with my books is that I wish I could paint and draw my own illustrations. I can imagine something and I can write it, but I can’t draw and express my stories through pictures. With my second book I found a very good lady who illustrates books and she knew exactly what I wanted. She did it all in watercolours, which was lovely. I was very lucky because she was on the same wavelength as me, and she was very good at her job.”
Before the pandemic, Sue promoted her writing around Hampshire, which was a challenge that pushed her out of her comfort zone. “People would expect me to have the latest computer and an iPad, but I never had any of that. I wrote my stories on Post-It notes, and I’d jot ideas down if I was in the garden or doing the washing up. I think people found that side of it interesting because you don’t need to have the latest technology to be creative, you just need a creative mind and an imagination.”
Despite having never done anything like it before, Sue found that promoting her stories ended up being one of her favourite parts of the process. “I was surprised when I read my stories in schools around Basingstoke, and I found that many children didn’t know what pheasants were or what an alpaca was. I was really quite surprised, but I am right on the edge of the countryside – I’ve been very lucky with everywhere I’ve lived – so I wanted to share that and show these different animals to the children.”
As well as Beatrix Potter, Sue also loves the works of Roald Dahl and the inimitable illustrations of Quentin Blake. “I love Roald Dahl’s stories, his craziness and his wild imagination. Charlie winning a golden ticket to go to a chocolate factory – it’s ideal for children. When you’re growing up your imagination runs wild and you have no idea where things are going. The stories are quite mad, really! But in a friendly way, and I really liked that.”
Beatrix Potter and Roald Dahl have very different approaches to storytelling, but at their heart they still show whole other worlds the reader can step into, and it’s that spark that Sue aims to capture in her own work, of something seemingly ordinary and commonplace holding secrets and layers far beyond anyone might guess. “Whenever I go out, I see children with phones and iPads. I never grew up with iPhones, I grew up with books, and I just love books, I love reading, I can go somewhere totally different from reading a book and I don’t even have to leave my room. I love that side of reading and I think you can learn so much from stories, so I would always encourage a book rather than an electrical gadget. I just love everything to do with imagination where I can jump right into stories myself. I love the magic of them, the magic of books.”
Lockdown was a very stressful time for Sue, and she ended up taking a break from writing, but she is now working on a third book. Her first two books, “Harry: A Cat’s Tale” and “Harry: A Cat’s Tale ‘A Purrfect Day’” are available to buy on her website and on Amazon. There is also an audiobook CD of her second book, which combines traditional narration with sound effects and animal noises for a full immersive experience.
“I guess I’m always looking to escape to a calm, kind, happy place,” Sue muses. “That’s where I imagine my books to be. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a world like that where everything is kind, but I love to imagine that simplicity and calmness and kindness. I guess it’s just the crazy world of Sue Lawrence!”