In a rare interview, Cotswolds-based children's book illustrator Inga Moore talks to David Clensy about her life, her work and her love for the English countryside

Y ou see, the thing is, as a journalist, you hope to make sense of the world by talking to others. The general aim is to meet people, and through conversation, open up a window on their world, even if it's only for a moment.

But very occasionally, you meet a sticky window – an interviewee who seems to be something of an enigma. You come away feeling as if you almost know less about them than when you started.

Which is not to say that children's book illustrator Inga Moore was anything less than delightful when we met over a glass of wine in an upmarket inn near Tetbury.

But at first there was a clear reticence from Inga to talk about herself, which, one can only assume, comes from the painstaking and relatively solitary pursuit of producing illustrations.

Her answers at first are strained and punctuated by long periods of pondering – almost as though she was being unnaturally careful about choosing the right words with which to answer.

As a newspaperman, you become used to people being a bit cautious when they talk to you. But with Inga, it doesn't seem to be derived out of a suspicion of journalists; rather I think it's a need for precision in all things.

But then, Inga did launch her career in the most precise environment you could imagine: a technical drawing studio – an early experience, which she says shaped much of her later approach to disciplined work routines.

You may not have heard of Inga by name. But you've almost certainly seen one of her books. In a career spanning the best part of 30 years, the Cotswolds-based artist has produced a diverse range of titles.

She won the Smarties award in 1990 for Six Dinner Sid, a book both written and illustrated by Inga, in which a cat fools six families into believing he is exclusively their pet – and consequently manages to bag six full meals each day.

But in more recent years, Australian- raised Inga, who lives near Painswick, has been producing the illustrations for a beautiful pair of classic children's books published as part of Walker Books' Classic Collection. And if I seem unduly misty-eyed, perhaps it's because Inga has spent years working on two of my own childhood favourites: Kenneth Grahame's The Wind In The Willows and Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden.

"It was a turning point for me, I think," Inga explains. "It was back in the late 1990s, when I decided I would like to illustrate The Wind In The Willows. Somebody had said to me, years before, that I should attempt it, but I thought it would be impossible – E H Shepard had done such a wonderful job of it in the first place.

"But then when I stopped and really thought about it, the sense of intimidation went away. I thought, yes, I can do this, and what's more, what a lovely way to spend your time, producing illustrations for such a classic book.

"It takes a year to produce the illustrations for a book like this, so you have to choose something that you love.

"E H Shepard had created the perfect figures for the actual characters. They couldn't really be bettered, because they were exactly what they should be – Mole was a mole, Ratty was a water rat, Badger was a badger, and so on. So actually, you'll find that my characters are not too different to Shepard's. But Shepard didn't do much in terms of backgrounds. To me, it's the backgrounds that bring illustrations to life, because they create the world in which the characters live. So that's what I concentrated on."

The result, which originally came out in hardback in 1996 (and is now available in paperback, much to Inga's clear disapproval), is a beautiful evocation of the English countryside.

"I tend not to use actual locations for my settings – most come from my imagination," she explains. "But I am heavily influenced by the landscape of the Cotswolds in which I live. It is such a beautiful area. I love, and have always loved the English country- side, and my work tends to be aimed at creating a sense of the English countryside, rather than being a carbon copy of an actual scene.

"Because, although I spent much of my early life in Adelaide, I was born in England. I lived in Sussex until I was eight years old, so my sense of the world was well established before I went to Australia. To me the countryside was, and always will be, the English countryside.

"I longed to see it again for a long time when I went out to Australia, and after a few years working in a technical drawing office, at about the age of 30, it seemed like a good time to return to England to try to follow my chosen profession.

"The life of a freelance illustrator seemed to me to be a world away from working 9am to 5pm in an office, so I was determined to make it work.

"This was an era, in the late Seventies and early Eighties, when people started to take children's book illustrations seriously again – thanks largely to Raymond Briggs.

"I remember my adult friends would pass around their copies of The Snowman and Father Christmas, to be admired and enjoyed like true pieces of art. It was certainly the right time to get into the industry.

"It truly was a struggle at first when I arrived in London in 1982. I was a long way from my family and friends when I came back to England. It was tough to find work for a while, being an unknown illustrator.

"I remember one day having just 50p left in my purse – that was all I had in the world."

Inga pauses to smile, and gives a little laugh to herself, before finally deciding – "No, I can't tell you that story." She grins again, at what seems to be her natural state of being slightly aloof.

"But slowly the work started coming in," she continues, "only it was when I eventually moved out to the Cotswolds, after a few years in London, that my career really blossomed, I think.

"As I say, so much of my work pays homage to the English countryside, that I think it was important for me to be living in it."

Eleven years after The Wind In The Willows, Inga completed her second Walker Classics masterpiece – The Secret Garden.

"That book nearly killed me towards the end," she says. "I adored the book, but it wasn't easy to illustrate. It's actually a fairly melancholy sort of a story, so I had to find a way of bringing the pictures to life.

"I eventually decided to incorporate little animals in the pictures, responding through their facial expressions to the storyline. So if things were going horribly wrong for our heroine, for example, I might incorporate a little mouse grimacing in horror at the situation.

"It added an element of fun that the book was missing, and I think it lifted the whole piece."

So what can be left in the ambitions of a children's book illustrator, once The Wind In The Willows and The Secret Garden – two of literature's great iconic works – have been interpreted so brilliantly in pictures?

"Oh, that's easy," Inga smiles, visibly relaxing with the enthusiasm of the prospect. "I'd love to illustrate T H White's The Sword In The Stone.

"There are few images as iconic in children's literature as the young Arthur pulling the sword from the stone. I've always simply adored that book, and if I get my way, that's what I'll do next."

The Wind In The Willows and The Secret Garden are published by Walker Books, and available in hardback or paperback from all good bookshops.