Author and illustrator Dick Bruna died yesterday, at the age of 89. In celebration, here is an interview he gave in 2008 about how he came to create the £150 million rabbit.

Dick Bruna has already made tea and brought over biscuits, and now he leans forward from a chair in his airy, top-floor Utrecht studio. Spectacular white walrus whiskers twitch expectantly and behind a pair of oval spectacles, his eyes twinkle.

This man - Geppetto made flesh - does not look or behave like the head of a global empire worth about £150 million annually. But Bruna is not your typical multi-millionaire mogul. No, he's the creator of Miffy, the world's most popular rabbit (and think for a moment of the competition for that title: Br'er, Peter, Roger...), whose modest adventures have sold more than 85 million storybooks, been translated into 40 languages, and whose clean, simple little face (two dots for eyes, a cross for a mouth) is recognised throughout the world.