Catherine Anholt
As a child
Catherine comes from an Irish family, but grew up in rural Gloucestershire. Her father was a potter and her mother a nurse. She was one of eight brothers and sisters. She has the unusual quality of total childhood recall, right back to being swaddled in a hairy blanket as a baby! She describes her childhood as being a lot like Cider with Rosie and, in fact, Laurie Lee lived close by.
As an adult
After a brief nursing career, Catherine found her true vocation as an artist at Falmouth School of Art in Cornwall, where she also met Laurence. She went to the Royal College of Art, where she was awarded an MA. She now lives with Laurence and her three grown-up children, Claire and twins, Tom and Maddy, in a rambling farmhouse in the woods, above the sea in Lyme Regis in Dorset.
As an artist
Catherine and Laurence have produced around ninety children’s books that are published in twenty-three languages around the world, and have won numerous awards, including the Nestlé Smarties Gold Award for Chimp and Zee. “We made our first books, sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by high-chairs and soggy rusks, and our business has grown alongside our family. Being a mum and being an artist have two things in common: they are both incredibly demanding but also superbly rewarding,” she says.
Things you didn't know about Catherine Anholt
- Catherine has twins called Tom and Maddy.
- Her eldest daughter, Claire, is studying anthropology at Cambridge.
- She has lived and worked with Laurence since she was twenty, and they are still happy.
- They have a fat cat called Harrods.
- Catherine is very tidy.
- She loves fishing, especialy on the west coast of Ireland.
- She loves early mornings and early nights (Laurence is the opposite).
- She starts each day with a walk in the woods or by the sea.
- She hates computers.
- But she loves sketchbooks, children, gardens and books.