My friend Carol highly recommended the Yorkshire Dales, so Brian and I set off to have a look at a part of the country we seem to have missed, and were immediately enchanted. Not only is it beautiful and magical but, as I soon discovered, it is believed to be the setting for a book I have always loved; The Water Babies by the Reverend Charles Kingsley. I immediately got out my illustrated version of the story and began to research, which was a joy. Just find yourself a beck in the Dales, and there are a great many to choose from, and look into the depths of the water, and if you have a good imagination you will immediately begin to see tiny figures going about their business. When Tom became a water baby he was four inches high, so when Maddy begins her search and embroils her friends in that same search she is looking for a tiny boy quite easily mistaken for a flickering trout or some other denizen of the not-so-deep waters. From then on my characters began to make themselves felt. I saw with awe the Malham Cove cliffs down which the little climbing boy was thought to have descended and I, who have no head for heights, did not wonder that he came ‘all over queer’ in the cottage of the kind old lady.
