Did your parents read to you as a child and if so what was your favourite story?

My parents didn’t read to me. We were a very literate household but I think the idea of bedtime stories was purely an English one in those days, this was the 1920s and 1930s! My father went through a phase of telling us the stories of the Old Testament but that wasn’t very successful. Adam and Eve was all right but when he got to Abraham and Isaac my brother had nightmares and woke up screaming “I won’t be sacrified!” so my mother put a stop to it. He also told us the plots of different operas which we loved.



What was the scariest bit of the journey to France and then England – when you left Germany?



Listen to me reading a part of When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, that part was the most scary. But you see I wasn’t scared enough. That’s how I nearly gave us away. My brother understood more. I think children may get worried when they are told about something, but they mainly think about what’s happening at the time, that’s what I did anyway.

What was it like growing up in Germany and knowing that you were in danger?

Well, we weren’t in danger until the last year we lived there. My brother was two and a half years older than me, and a lot more in touch with the world. I just wandered around and drew pictures. All sorts of terrible things happened of course – but I didn’t know about them. Our parents didn’t talk about it in our presence. We left Germany on the night before the elections when the Nazi party got voted in, on 5 March 1933. My mother told me later that at 8am on 6 March, Nazis came to our house for all our passports – so it was frightening but I wasn’t aware of it. Our last winter in Berlin was great because we were beginning to be allowed to do things on our own, we were that much older. We went to the cinema on our own, the film was one of the first talkies (up until then the films were silent), Emil and the Detectives. I was nine years old.

Your husband Nigel Kneale was a famous writer, was there ever had any rivalry between you on your writing or did you help each other with ideas?

Yes I married a truly brilliant writer Nigel Kneale (that was his professional name, he was really Tom). He was an extremely successful writer, particular a screenwriter and most famous for writing The Quatermass Experiment, right in the early days of TV. Tom got me my first job in TV in the 1950s where I worked before I had children. I owe so much to Tom. I’d never have done anything without him, apart from the drawings. I had no rivalry with him at all, just support and inspiration. He was writing these extraordinary things while I was drawing. It was wonderful!

Where do you get your inspiration from, your books are so varied and for different age groups?

My first picture book was The Tiger Who Came to Tea and that was a story I first told to my daughter when she was almost three, but I didn’t get round to writing it and illustrating until she and her younger brother were old enough to stay for lunch at school so I could work for 9-3! I told it so many times that the words in the book are exactly as I spoke them. The only thing that’s different is that every page started with “And” – just as I told it – and the editors suggested taking out that And, which was right!



Judith Kerr, painting with Mog, the real life cat who inspired her Mog books. Photograph: Judith Kerr

We noticed that on all of the Mog books in our library the cover shows a fretful, anxious or sad Mog except for Goodbye Mog, was this something you were aware of as you began writing more and more in the series and would you describe Mog as an unhappy cat?

This is a very funny question, thank you. It hadn’t been planned but of course any story tends to be about something is a problem which comes right. So I suppose that’s why Mog has such a puzzled face. And it’s Mog’s nature not to understand what’s going on, so she has a lot to worry about. Mog the Forgetful cat was about the first cat I had, who was really called Mog. I’d always wanted a cat but never had one because of all the travelling. I was fascinated by her because I didn’t realise cats did all these strange things until I had Mog. So I thought I’d make a book about all the odd things she did. And that was that, I never planned to do a series about Mog. I think I wrote Pink Rabbit after Mog the Forgetful Cat. But then my children wanted kitten, so we got a kitten which was mad in a different way. She had this thing about being frightened of heights and was terrified of the Christmas tree so I thought I’d write about that too – but I stuck it all on Mog because I didn’t want to have to have a new family with a new cat in the book. So that was Mog’s Christmas, as time went on we kept getting more cats and they kept doing weird things, so every so often I did another Mog book. I’ve had nine cats and my Katinka is my latest.

In When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, Anna reads a book about They Who Grew to Be Great when she realises that everyone famous had a difficult childhood. Do you think your childhood was difficult and it’s made you famous?



I don’t think I had a difficult childhood. I had a tiny bit of trauma which I didn’t even notice. We had a far more interesting childhood than we would have had otherwise – and our parents were terribly good and made it feel like an adventure. They were terribly sensible. We both came top in French after two years of living in France and learning the language, and other refugee children did the same. So I think this kind of thing stimulates your brain. I would have had far less to write about of course if we hadn’t had to flee Hitler and Germany. I have only written three novels which are based on my life starting with When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, then Bombs on Aunt Dainty and finally A Small Person Far Away, I only wrote those books because of what happened. I’ve never been able to write about anything else. After I’d written the three novels I thought I’d try and write another one that was purely fictional. I spent 18 months trying to write it and it was useless, I wrote it in first person, then third person and it turned out utterly rubbish half way through. I gave up and realised I had to write and illustrate picture books!

Have you read Anne Frank’s diary?

Of course I did. That made a massive impact on me. Of course it’s 100% different from my book When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. Anne Frank was incredible… it is so sad to think what she might have done if she’d been able to grow up… this was the Holocaust. I’m not part of it because I escaped it. I know I have been many younger children’s introduction to the Holocaust though and I know readers have been upset by the Jewish man who was forced to live in a kennel in a Nazi concentration camp who I talk about in When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. That story totally disturbed me when I heard about it, and it really happened. When we first got to Switzerland and Hitler won the elections, a lot of Jewish friends and acquaintances came to visit us on their way out of Germany. I remember a woman coming and telling my father this story about a man being chained to dog kennel and I heard it, even though my father tried to stop her from telling it while I was listening. After that I didn’t want to think about Germany any more. And of course there was so much else to think about.

Did you really have a teacher like Herr Graupo from When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit?

I’m convinced I did. I’m sure I remember him telling us about people from the Stone Age fastening their furs with safety pins. I’m convinced it happened, but at the same time I don’t see how it could have done!

Do you still think about your Pink Rabbit that you had to leave behind in Germany?

I remember it. It was quite old and wasn’t very pink anymore. My brother Michael had played football with it and it’s eyes had come out so Heimpi embroidered new eyes on it. But when I first wrote the story down I didn’t include the rabbit in it. I had told my husband Tom the story though and he said I had to put it in. He also gave the book the title When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. It was a brilliant title but the publishers didn’t like at first. Even reviewers at the time said things like: “in spite of the strange title, it’s a very good book”. I think someone suggested it should be called The Famous Family.

Why did you start writing for children?

When I had my own children I realised by the time children were two they had love, affection, jealousy, worry, everything adults have – and they could understand a story. But at that time there were not really stories for two year olds. There were books to let you learn to recognise a cow. And there were books with blurbs saying “this will let you enrich your child’s vocabulary” but not stories. Learning to read in German is dead easy because it’s almost entirely phonetic. Learning to read in English is so hard and totally illogical, all those toughs and thoughs. You have to do everything you can to make it interesting. I remember my son Matt was reading Janet and John (some particularly dull books of the time) and saying “I am sorry mummy I cannot read these books anymore they are too boring’”. He said I am going to learn to read with the Cat in the Hat books. Which he did, Doctor Seuss came a long and totally transformed everything of course! So that’s why I started writing my books.

With thanks to book groups: Willowtown Wonders, St Joseph’s Primary School, Golspie Bookworm, Georges River Grammar and Heartlands High School Library Book Clubs for sending in great questions.

Judith Kerr shares the real life stories behind her books and paintings at the Imagine children’s festival at London’s South Bank on 20 February 2015

Judith Kerr will be speaking at a Guardian Live event about inspirational women on 12 March at the Royal Geographical Society in London. Guardian Live is our series of events and debates exclusively for Guardian Members. Find out how to sign up.