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Mairi Hedderwick (born 2 May 1939) is a Scottish illustrator and author, best known for the ''Katie Morag'' series of children's picture books set on the Isle of Struay, a fictional counterpart of the real-life inner Hebridean island of Coll where Hedderwick has lived at various times for much of her life. She has also written several books of travel writing for adults, and is the illustrator of a growing range of Hebridean stationery. == Life == Mairi Crawford Lindsay was born in Gourock on 2 May 1939,〔(Hedderwick, Mairi 1939– ), ''Contemporary Authors'', Gale Cengage, January 2004; via highbeam.com〕 the daughter of Douglas Lindsay, an architect who died suddenly when she was thirteen,〔Kenny Farquharson, (Katie goes home ), ''Sunday Times Ecosse'' section, 2 October 2005〕 and Margaret Crawford;〔 she is the grand-daughter of the Scottish missionary Dan Crawford.〔〔Mairi Hedderwick, Mairi's mission, ''Sunday Times'' ''Ecosse'' section page 1, 31 October 1999. Accessed via NewsBank. Hedderwick seeks out her grandfather's legacy in the Congo. Mairi Hedderwick, Search for grandfather's soul, ''Sunday Times'' ''Ecosse'' section page 4, 7 November 1999. Accessed via NewsBank.〕 She was educated at Gourock primary school and then at the independent St Columba's School for Girls in nearby Kilmacolm, but describes her childhood in the strict Christian household as "serious, very lonely", always feeling out of place.〔〔 Instead she longed for the kind of carefree existence she would later depict in the Katie Morag stories, and used to wish herself "over the hills and far away" beyond the Cowal hills that she could see behind Kirn and Dunoon on the far side of the Firth of Clyde.〔〔(Welcome to my world: Mairi Hedderwick ), ''Scotland on Sunday'', 11 May 2008.〕 In 1957, she went to Edinburgh College of Art, studying mural painting and ceramics,〔Mairi Hedderwick, (Windows into Illustration ), ''Books for Keeps'', No. 163, March 2007〕 where she noticed an advertisement for a mother's help on the Isle of Coll. She went to the island for the first time that year, and then came back every summer of her student vacations.〔 After graduating she married Ronnie Hedderwick on 24 June 1962,〔 and worked for two years as a travelling art teacher in Mid Argyll, qualifying at Jordanhill College of Education.〔〔(Mairi Hedderwick biography ), The Illustration Cupboard〕 The couple then spent eighteen months working respectively as a dairymaid and a cattleman on a large farm estate at Applecross in Wester Ross;〔 but in 1965,〔Mairi Hedderwick, (The Strange Tale of Tideline Ted ), ''The Coll Magazine'', 1985〕 three months after the birth of her first child, Mark Hedderwick,〔Pat Gerber, (Back to an island of bitter-sweet memories ), ''The Herald'', 16 May 1991〕 they moved to Coll, where they bought Crossapol, an isolated 19th century farmhouse at the southern end of the island, with a big Rayburn stove and oil and gas lamps and a well, but neither electricity nor running water nor permanent road access, three miles from the next nearest house, at the end of a mile and a half of white sand beach.〔〔, ''Scots Heritage'' magazine, 24 July 2008〕 There the family lived for ten years, raising their two children Mark and Tammie. Initially the family had hoped to make a living tending lobster pots and keeping a few sheep and cattle, but increasingly Hedderwick began turning to her artistic skills to supplement the family income, teaching in the local school, selling pictures to tourists, and in 1969 starting a printing business called the Malin Workshop producing postcards and illustrated calendars with drawings of wildlife and maps of the islands,〔〔Vicky Allan, (Interview: Katie Morag: the red-haired girl who became a 'monster' ), ''Sunday Herald'', 7 May 2006〕〔(Postcard of Coll ), Malin Workshop, 1970s; auctioned on ebay, 7 November 2010〕 initially all hand-printed without electricity.〔Grace W. Ruth, ("Mairi Hedderwick" ), in Anita Silvey (ed.), ''Children's books and their creators'', p. 301. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1995. ISBN 0-395-65380-0.〕〔Lorn Macintyre, (Island-hopping artist ), ''The Herald'', 24 June 1989〕 A visitor she met on the beach one day turned out to be an editor at Macmillan Books; showing off the nearby house full of her watercolours, she was soon signed up as a contract illustrator for the company, winning an in-house contest to illustrate a version by Rumer Godden of ''The Old Woman who lived in a Vinegar Bottle'' (1972) and then three children's books featuring Janet Reachfar by the established Scottish author Jane Duncan.〔Anne Johnstone, (That's what Katie Morag does next ), ''The Herald'', 3 July 1993〕〔Jane Duncan, ''Brave Janet Reachfar'', aka ''Herself and Janet Reachfar'' (Macmillan, 1975 / Birlinn, 2002); ''Janet Reachfar and the Kelpie'' (Macmillan, 1976 / Birlinn, 2002); ''Janet Reachfar and the Chickabird'' (Macmillan, 1978 / Birlinn, 2002)〕 With no secondary schools on the island, the family left Coll in 1973 and moved to Fort William on the mainland to remain all together.〔 After Jane Duncan died in 1976, Hedderwick was encouraged by her editor to take the plunge and write and illustrate her own stories.〔〔 However it was not until 1984, three publishers later, that the first of Hedderwick's Katie Morag stories, ''Katie Morag Delivers the Mail'', finally appeared in print inspired by her time on Coll.〔 The book was well received, and three more Katie Morag picturebooks rapidly followed in the next three years. Hedderwick's marriage came to an end in the mid-1980s,〔 and with her children now educated, she gave up a part-time job with the Highlands and Islands Development Board advising community co-operatives and in 1990 moved back to Coll, first letting and then fully buying back the house at Crossapol, where she found her children's childhood pictures still on the walls.〔 In her next Katie Morag book, ''Katie Morag and the New Pier'' (1993), she addressed the issue of an island that was changing fast from the remote isolated place she had known in the 1960s.〔 Another four Katie Morag books followed, but increasingly Hedderwick began to find herself becoming a not-entirely-willing tourist attraction on Coll in her own right,〔 and after almost ten years she felt it was time to move on.〔 Five years in the Scottish Borders followed, succeeded by several years restoring a pair of cottages near Jemimaville on the Black Isle looking over the Cromarty Firth; but neither felt quite right, so in 2005 she decided to return again to Coll, where she had a new house built close to her daughter and grandchildren.〔〔〔〔 As of 2013 Hedderwick is living on the mainland again, in Inverness-shire;〔Susan Swarbrick, (Katie Morag: from Struay to CBeebies ), ''The Herald'', 25 October 2013〕 she says she could have seen herself being a farmer's wife and "interior designer of houses in wild places", had she not been a writer.〔(Quickfire interview: Mairi Hedderwick ), ''The Guardian'', 26 November 2013〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mairi Hedderwick」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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