Railway Passage

"It’s a book about a row of houses and the characters who live there; children, adults and the elderly. One day, this community wins an awful lot of money on the football pools. It changes them—some in good ways, but others not so good. The nice people get even nicer, and those who were mean and crotchety before get even more mean and crotchety. The last person on the row of cottages is a man who runs a bicycle shop. Winning the money really doesn’t change him very much at all; he just gets on with his life and mends the children’s bicycles. This book is very much of its own time—it was published in 1974. But I love it for the fantastic illustrations. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . It’s a story that you might not get now because it concentrates on the adults. I think it’s so good show to children today because it demonstrates another perspective.It reminds me of another world. The story is told by the children looking in on these grown-ups and the odd ways they behave. It’s also an urban environment, which you don’t often see in picture books anymore—it’s a rare look at an ordinary working community. It’s line-drawing basically—different weights of line. You’ve got some very thin spidery lines, and then you’ve got some strong, wide lines. He gets a huge amount of variety just from line-drawing."