Fuzzypeg, Giunea Pig Podge and Me!

 I have been asked several times now about my reasons and inspiration for making my bird dolls. Watching birds is second nature to me as is always feeding the birds. I find them beautiful and mystifying.

I am a country girl and had a wonderful aunty with whom I wandered the counytyside learning to identify trees, flowers and birds. Books have always been a joy to me and as a child I had a doting grandma who spent hours reading to me and encouraging me to read very early.

My grandparents had a caravan at a lovely spot near Cartmel Fell in the Soouthern Lakes and in the nearest town, Grange over Sands there was a shop ran by a cheerful old fellow called Jolyon Dodgeson he sold greeting cards, napkins, stationary and children's books.  It is from this shop that we bought books that filled my imagination with animals in pretty dresses and smart jackets.

Like many children in England I grew up with Beatrix Potter and The Tales of Peter Rabbit, my collection of her stories was read by all my cousins growing up and then came back to me when I had my daugher and she shared them.  Also Alison Uttley's Little Grey Rabbit stories were important to me and I fondly remember tales of Fuzzypeg the hedghog and Mouldy Warp the mole but my favourite by far was the adventures of the animals in the world of Racey Helps.  He was a writer and illustrator working in the 1940's, 50's & 60's, the stories started out as adventures for his children but he began to write them down and illustrate them and they became a gentle success published in wonderful colour by the Medici Society.  His beautifully detailed illustrations have stayed with me all my life, less well known than either Beatrix Potter or Alison Uttley but just as worthy.

Still a child at heart my bird dolls started as a wish to make illustrations in my head come to life but as I progress they have become more totemic than that.  They are stuffed with herbs in their stuffing and quite often have a polished stone at their heart.  I have shared all these stories with my daughter and the original books from the 1960's are as well worn and loved as any books can be.  They take me all the way back to perennial summers in the Lake District, walks filled with wonder and the chance to see a hedgehog slipping past in a blue jacket with brass buttons.