I come from a family of business people, but I had the idea I wanted to become an artist.

Each book first begins with a little idea.

Now, I had been drawing all this time - especially in France of course - so, when I came back, my father gave me the chance to do a cover for one of the books he published.

When I make a book, I make it for the child and not for the parent - no jokes in it for the parents!

But we discovered that, although I liked publishing, the commercial side meant nothing at all to me.

Then one day I thought it would be wonderful to make a whole book, to make my text and my drawings together, and that's how I started doing children's books.

My father realised that for me to become a publisher in his firm would have been the end of the firm!