Scheffler found his way into art by being political. “When I was growing up in Hamburg, there was the Vietnam war going on, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and there are teenage drawings of mine in which I reflected on that, so that was my formation,” he says. “Oh! I didn’t know that,” says Donaldson, turning to him in surprise. “Now I draw rabbits and mice,” he says and they look at each other and laugh. It’s not difficult to see elements of Donaldson’s own story in her work. Born into a bohemian family in Hampstead, north London, she grew up in a home that she, her parents and sister shared with her grandmother, uncle and aunt. Her parents encouraged her and her sister “to absolutely be ourselves”, and Donaldson wrote musical versions of fairytales, which the four of them would perform for the extended family. To this day, she thinks of herself as a “performer-author”, and she and Malcolm frequently put on shows of her books; at the time of our interview, they are preparing for a performance at the Edinburgh festival. I ask Scheffler if his and his German-French family’s lives have changed much in Britain since Brexit. “Not so much on a day-to-day basis, but I look at the quality of politicians in this country and it’s incredible. In Germany, it would be unthinkable to have such incompetent, cynical and corrupt people in government. Sorry, I’m getting political,” he says. They are the brains behind dozens of picture books including Room on the Broom, Tabby McTat and, of course, The Gruffalo. One of their latest books together is The Baddies — about a witch, a troll and a ghost who like being bad.

Why? It’s because she gets to marry her husband Malcolm all over again. She plays Betty O’Barley (“I give her an Irish accent”) and he plays Harry O’Hay, the scarecrow whose love is threatened by the arrival of the dastardly Reginald Drake. “I like it because it’s got that Hollywood love triangle.” For his part, Scheffler says he prefers to draw fairy tale stories and fantastical creatures. "I find it easier to illustrate a story like that," he says. "I don't think I'm very good at observing the everyday, modern life." The pair say they don't work on their books at the same time. "I kind of beaver away all by myself," Donaldson says. If she thinks she's written a story that Scheffler would like to draw, she'll send him the finished manuscript. The spark happens when when when the pictures come together with the text in the book," explains Scheffler. "We're very different people and it's amazing that it works so well." You’ll have to ask the pig, I’m not responsible for my characters!” laughs Scheffler, and Donaldson nods: “It’s nice when children see things in the books I’m not aware of. You know they’re really looking at them.”Ongoing Covid restrictions, reduced air and freight capacity, high volumes and winter weather conditions are all impacting transportation and local delivery across the globe. The baddies have ended up as a troll, a ghost and a witch, as well as a little girl who isn’t frightened by them at all, and I mention to Donaldson that I think it’s clever how it rightly observes that children are rarely scared by what you expect (my own son, for example was for years inexplicably terrified by the owl in The Gruffalo). “Oh that’s so true. We did a show recently where a child was not fazed at all by the dragon but was so scared of the wind.” What does she think children are looking for in a memorable picture book? “You know, you can’t generalise about young children. I have nine grandchildren and they all have different tastes. But a satisfying ending that isn’t totally predictable is important. And the language.” What I like about Julia's text is the subtlety of her messaging," says Scheffler. The Baddies is about kindness, and how being good is better than being bad at the end of the day. But mostly, it's just supposed to be fun. One of my television songs, A SQUASH AND A SQUEEZE, was made into a book in 1993, with illustrations by the wonderful Axel Scheffler. It was great to hold the book in my hand without it vanishing in the air the way the songs did. This prompted me to unearth some plays I’d written for a school reading group, and since then I’ve had 20 plays published. Most children love acting and it’s a tremendous way to improve their reading. I grew up in a tall Victorian London house with my parents, grandmother, aunt, uncle, younger sister Mary and cat Geoffrey (who was really a prince in disguise. Mary and I would argue about which of us would marry him).

Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler started working together more than 30 years ago, on A Squash and a Squeeze. Donaldson had written the story as a song when she was in her 20s — years later she got a call from a publisher who wanted to turn the song into a children's book. She was paired up with Scheffler for the illustrations. Their second book together was The Gruffalo. It goes deeper than that. The stories should be universal, so if there is a message, it should be for anyone at any time,” she says. Here, I’ll show you,” she says standing up, and Malcolm – keen as ever – runs over to perform alongside her. In Germany, it would be unthinkable to have such incompetent, cynical and corrupt people in government Axel SchefflerMy real breakthrough was THE GRUFFALO, again illustrated by Axel. We work separately - he’s in London and I’m in Glasgow - but he sends me letters with lovely funny pictures on the envelopes. Donaldson has in the past talked about her concerns for today’s children, from them having to wear masks in school to the effects of social media. So I persist with my theory that perhaps The Baddies is a parable about how much resilience modern kids need to deal with the world – and she persists in batting it away: “No, no, no,” she says firmly. Frog and Toad, George and Martha, Curious George and the Man in the Yellow Hat: iconic duos abound in children's literature. Another classic pair? Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. Does she see books as a way for children to learn about the world around them, or an oasis in which they can escape from it?

She wasn’t unhappy, she adds, just sensitive. “I just couldn’t understand other people, and even when I was about 10 I would always have one little cry every day.” One year her father gave her a poetry compilation, A Book of 1,000 Poems, and she decided to become a poet (she cites Shakesapeare as an influence and has recently written a story in iambic pentameter for the first time). The ghost tries to scare the little girl in her bedroom — she offers him a warm bath and a cup of tea. We are experiencing delays with deliveries to many countries, but in most cases local services have now resumed. For more details, please consult the latest information provided by Royal Mail's International Incident Bulletin. I feel our books are kind of timeless, and that might be some secret of their success," says Axel Scheffler. "My style is very personal and it's not fashionable or anything. So there's no trend."Before Malcolm and I had our three sons we used to go busking together and I would write special songs for each country; the best one was in Italian about pasta.

Obviously every story has to have a message, otherwise it would be a bit pointless," says Donaldson, but — "I'm certainly not thinking 'Oh dear I'm so worried that children are being mean to each other, I must write a book to show that kindness can be good.' Not at all. I just hope they enjoy the story and have a good laugh." I also continued to write “grown-up” songs and perform them in folk clubs and on the radio, and have recently released two CDs of these songs. One thing Donaldson and Scheffler understand after all these years is that kids like to be scared — just not too much.Though, she admits, she's running out of creatures for Scheffler to draw. "I do think sometimes about gargoyles or a sphinx or something," she says. "It's getting harder and harder, actually." When a little girl moves into a nearby cottage, the three baddies are practically giddy. They decide to compete to see who can steal the little girl's blue hanky. We have sailed past our allotted time by now but I have one last question from my three-year-old: why, at the end of A Squash and a Squeeze, does the pig look angry but the other animals don’t? Did they instantly know, when Scheffler made the drawings for A Squash and a Squeeze almost 30 years ago, about an old woman who thinks her house is too small, that they’d found each other’s work soulmate? After studying drama and French at university, she busked around Europe, joined by a fellow performing enthusiast, who was, of course, Malcolm. I ask if their busking days inspired Donaldson and Scheffler’s book, Tabby McTat, about a busking cat and his shabby human, Fred. “Julia’s sister says Fred is who I’d be if I hadn’t met Julia, which I deeply resent,” Malcolm chortles. He is certainly as devoted as Fred: when Donaldson can’t remember quite when she finished writing The Baddies, Malcolm consults his diary and gives her precise start and finishing dates.