A New Life: Aubrey Flegg took early retirement to indulge in children's make believe. Sylvia Thompson reports
Aubrey Flegg (66) lives in the kind of house you might imagine a children's writer would live in - mysterious on the outside and full of old world charm on the inside. At the end of a lane, off a quiet cul-de-sac in the Dublin suburb of Rathgar, the house is entered via a beautiful high-walled garden, filled with roses, poppies and a lily pond.
We sit upstairs overlooking this garden as Flegg charts the course of his life from his early years in Dublin and on a farm in Co Sligo to boarding school in England, two years mandatory national service (as a medical orderly and a member of a mountain rescue team in Scotland) to college years in Trinity College Dublin to field trips in Kenya as a geologist.
These early years were followed by almost 30 years back in Dublin working for the Geological Survey of Ireland and then the radical step towards early retirement six years ago to become a full-time writer.
When we meet, Flegg is still basking in the glory of winning the Bisto Book of the Year award for his children's novel, Wings Over Delft (O'Brien Press). The book is part one of a trilogy which follows the life of a painting from 17th Century Holland through the French Revolution (The Rainbow Bridge - book two: the Louise trilogy) to Vienna in the late 19th Century at the time of Hitler's takeover of Austria (In the Claws of the Eagle - book three: the Louise trilogy). "I'm really chuffed, very delighted," he says. "The nice thing about the award is the effect on the book. I feel it more for the book now than for myself."
This most prestigious award for children's books in Ireland is Flegg's first major award although he did win the International Board on Books for Young people (IBBY) Peter Pan award for the Swedish translation of his first children's novel, Katie's War (O'Brien Press). Not someone to rest on his laurels however, he is just back from a week in Cracow as part of the research work for In The Claws of the Eagle.
So how does it feel to make such a radical shift in one's working life at a relatively late stage? "I think the exact thing about it is that [working as a writer] is mind-opening at a time when you feel other things are closing down. Certainly using the right side of the brain rather than the left has been a wonderful invigorating and refreshing experience from my point of view," he says
This writer's life involves three to four hours writing each day with other time left for research, hill walking with his wife, Jennifer, and pursuing other hobbies.
"My father who was a tenor used to say you can only practise for three to four hours a day yet you are a singer for 24 hours a day. It's a bit like that with writing. Once you've spent your morning writing, the rest of the day is your own but it is all part of the creative process," says Flegg.
His daughter, Eleanor Flegg, is also a writer and he describes his wife, Jennifer, as a "very good critic and commentator". His son, Nigel, is director of the Newpark Music School in Blackrock, Co Dublin.
Flegg willingly draws on his past experiences for his writing. For instance, the inspiration for Katie's War - a story set during the Irish Civil War - came in part from his Limerick-born mother's pride in her nationalistic heritage (her great-grandfather was William Smith O'Brien, one of the Young Irelanders).
Inspiration for The Cinnamon Tree, the story of a young African girl who steps on a landmine, came both from Flegg's time working as a geologist in Kenya and from a more formative six months in Vienna at the time of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956.
"My father got a job in Vienna as the art and music representative of the British Council and I went there on holidays from school and then for six months after school. Just seeing the revolution from over the border made me politically aware and I also went with my sister to work in a refugee reception area for a few days."
In contrast to how he describes his fictional themes, inspiring life events and research work, Flegg speaks rather unenthusiastically about his years working as a civil servant with the Geological Survey of Ireland. "Over time the amount of field work was getting less and less and the office work more and more. It wasn't really what I felt I'd become a geologist for. I had a sincere interest in rocks and when I first became a geologist, I imagined I would work abroad far more than I did."
Flegg's personal turning point (or growing point as he calls it) came in 1992 when he went on a creative writing for children course at the Dublin Writers' Centre. "This was my first positive move [previous to this, he had written an adult novel and a play, neither of which was accepted for publication and a children's short story, entitled Timpani, which was published in the Irish Press by David Marcus and later in a collection of Irish Christmas Stories, edited by David Marcus\]. I only really clicked with the writing when I began to imagine a young person reading the story."
In 1994, he wrote his first children's book which various publishers also rejected. However, undeterred, he went half-time in his job in 1996 when he was half way through the research for Katie's War. "I realised I still had the energy and focus to develop something new and that now was the time to do it. It would have been a great mistake to arrive at 65 tired and perhaps a bit dejected after doing five more years of pen-pushing in the civil service sense. At that stage, it would have been very difficult to develop the energy to start something new."
So, following the publication of Katie's War in 1997, he awaited his 60th birthday so as not to erode his pension too much and in 1998 he gave up the day job. "I retired the day of my 60th birthday, my wife said I could have at least waited until the next day," he laughs.
• Aubrey Flegg will read from Wings Over Delft on Friday at 11 a.m. in the Project Theatre, Temple Bar, Dublin as part of the Dublin Writers Festival. Admission is free. Booking on tel: (01) 8721122.