Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss
R.I.P. Helen Nicoll, 74, in September (British writer: "Meg and Mog" series)
2 views
Skip to first unread message
leno...@yahoo.com
Oct 10, 2012, 7:24:16 PM10/10/12
to
Also an audiobook pioneer, she would have turned 75 today.
http://www.puffin.co.uk/nf/Author/AuthorPage/0,,1000023967,00.html#biblio
(webpage)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9587995/Helen-Nicoll.html
First third:
The daughter of a director of K Shoes, Helen Morag Nicoll was born on October 10 1937 in Natland, Westmorland, and educated at nearby Blackwell and then Badminton School, Bristol. For a year she studied the violin at Dartington Hall, Devon.
Following a teacher training course at the Froebel Education Institute in Roehampton, she worked as a primary schoolteacher in Cambridge in the early 1960s before moving into children’s television at Associated Rediffusion.
She applied to the BBC for the job of running children’s programming and by 1967 was one of its first female producers. There she conceived, scripted and produced Watch! — a weekly programme for schools which was a mix of outside and studio filming and included graphics and story telling.
She employed the then little-known illustrators John Burningham and Jan Pienkowski. “She was a demanding but inspiring boss” Pienkowski recalled. “She made me dress from head to toe in black, including hat and gloves, so that I was invisible to the audience. I would then draw live on camera — a child skating across the screen for instance — to the tune of Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. It kept children in suspense.”
The series ran until 1971 when, to sustain her successful collaboration with Pienkowski, Helen Nicoll dreamed up the Meg and Mog series of children’s books.
Over the next 44 years she wrote and he illustrated 17 books, most of which have never gone out of print. They feature Meg, a witch whose spells always seem to go wrong, her cat Mog, and their friend Owl. Pienkowski lived in Barnes, south-west London, Helen in Wiltshire, and they would meet halfway in the Membury service station cafeteria on the M4........
http://www.smh.com.au/national/obituaries/childrens-author-was-an-audio-book-pioneer-20121009-27b46.html
(second half)
.......The series became a successful play during the 1980s starring Maureen Lipman and a television series in the 2000s. A Meg and Mog film is set for release in 2014.
Then, when her mother became ill, Nicoll bought her an audio version of Jane Eyre. Appalled to discover it had been radically abridged, her mother refused to listen to it. So in 1983, with £15,000 of Meg and Mog royalties, Nicoll founded Cover to Cover, determined to produce unabridged classics. It became a ground-breaking audio book company.
She invited the actor Patricia Routledge to stay and they recorded the whole of Wuthering Heights in 10 days. With her insight into what pleased the young, Nicoll concentrated on the A-level curriculum. Orders flooded in and, with her faultless talent for casting, Nicoll went on to record 75 unabridged titles and more than 100 children's titles.
Nicoll's perfectionism was famous. J.K.Rowling took to her economy of display and straight talking at the Frankfurt book fair and offered her the audio rights of the then unheard of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Knowing it would run to six tapes and cost more than any of her other children's titles, Nicoll's instinct told her to take the risk. She bought the rights for £5000 and was determined to get Stephen Fry to record it.
For weeks he refused, but she persisted. Fry's delivery shaped the public perception of Harry Potter. In 2000, when BBC Worldwide bought Cover to Cover, Nicoll excluded the Potter recordings from the deal.
Nicoll was married for 42 years to the interior designer and antique dealer Robert Kime, who survives her with their son and daughter.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/obituaries/childrens-author-was-an-audio-book-pioneer-20121009-27b46.html#ixzz28wQegCLf
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/oct/09/helen-nicoll
(remembrance)
By Jan Pienkowski
The Guardian, Tuesday 9 October 2012 12.06 EDT
Helen Nicoll, who has died aged 74, was best known as the writer of the Meg and Mog books for children. When we first decided to create a picture book about a witch and her cat, in the early 1970s, my condition as the illustrator was that if the witch were to make a spell, it must never work – and that is how the series began. Helen and I were taken on by the editor Judith Elliott at Heinemann, who immediately asked for two books instead of one. The books are now in their fifth decade.
Helen's style in everything she did was to be clear, brief and to the point. She wanted things to be right – for instance, when we worked on the book Meg's Castle, I drove her on a research tour of Welsh castles, in appalling weather, and she came up with perhaps my favourite spell: "Double trouble/ Rock and rubble/Oil boil/And cauldron bubble." Needless to say, the spell didn't work – as we had agreed.
At the time, Helen lived near Marlborough in Wiltshire, while I live in Barnes, south-west London, so we had to develop a way of working together. We hit on the idea of meeting at the Membury service station on the M4. This became our routine. We were regulars, the friendly staff didn't seem to mind and I always brought a little bunch of flowers to put on our table. We spent many frenzied hours struggling with stories and pictures, accompanied by any number of cups of tea. Helen was an inspiring but merciless collaborator and usually managed to get her way with her innate charm..........
(snip)
Lenona.
http://www.puffin.co.uk/nf/Author/AuthorPage/0,,1000023967,00.html#biblio
(webpage)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9587995/Helen-Nicoll.html
First third:
The daughter of a director of K Shoes, Helen Morag Nicoll was born on October 10 1937 in Natland, Westmorland, and educated at nearby Blackwell and then Badminton School, Bristol. For a year she studied the violin at Dartington Hall, Devon.
Following a teacher training course at the Froebel Education Institute in Roehampton, she worked as a primary schoolteacher in Cambridge in the early 1960s before moving into children’s television at Associated Rediffusion.
She applied to the BBC for the job of running children’s programming and by 1967 was one of its first female producers. There she conceived, scripted and produced Watch! — a weekly programme for schools which was a mix of outside and studio filming and included graphics and story telling.
She employed the then little-known illustrators John Burningham and Jan Pienkowski. “She was a demanding but inspiring boss” Pienkowski recalled. “She made me dress from head to toe in black, including hat and gloves, so that I was invisible to the audience. I would then draw live on camera — a child skating across the screen for instance — to the tune of Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. It kept children in suspense.”
The series ran until 1971 when, to sustain her successful collaboration with Pienkowski, Helen Nicoll dreamed up the Meg and Mog series of children’s books.
Over the next 44 years she wrote and he illustrated 17 books, most of which have never gone out of print. They feature Meg, a witch whose spells always seem to go wrong, her cat Mog, and their friend Owl. Pienkowski lived in Barnes, south-west London, Helen in Wiltshire, and they would meet halfway in the Membury service station cafeteria on the M4........
http://www.smh.com.au/national/obituaries/childrens-author-was-an-audio-book-pioneer-20121009-27b46.html
(second half)
.......The series became a successful play during the 1980s starring Maureen Lipman and a television series in the 2000s. A Meg and Mog film is set for release in 2014.
Then, when her mother became ill, Nicoll bought her an audio version of Jane Eyre. Appalled to discover it had been radically abridged, her mother refused to listen to it. So in 1983, with £15,000 of Meg and Mog royalties, Nicoll founded Cover to Cover, determined to produce unabridged classics. It became a ground-breaking audio book company.
She invited the actor Patricia Routledge to stay and they recorded the whole of Wuthering Heights in 10 days. With her insight into what pleased the young, Nicoll concentrated on the A-level curriculum. Orders flooded in and, with her faultless talent for casting, Nicoll went on to record 75 unabridged titles and more than 100 children's titles.
Nicoll's perfectionism was famous. J.K.Rowling took to her economy of display and straight talking at the Frankfurt book fair and offered her the audio rights of the then unheard of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Knowing it would run to six tapes and cost more than any of her other children's titles, Nicoll's instinct told her to take the risk. She bought the rights for £5000 and was determined to get Stephen Fry to record it.
For weeks he refused, but she persisted. Fry's delivery shaped the public perception of Harry Potter. In 2000, when BBC Worldwide bought Cover to Cover, Nicoll excluded the Potter recordings from the deal.
Nicoll was married for 42 years to the interior designer and antique dealer Robert Kime, who survives her with their son and daughter.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/obituaries/childrens-author-was-an-audio-book-pioneer-20121009-27b46.html#ixzz28wQegCLf
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/oct/09/helen-nicoll
(remembrance)
By Jan Pienkowski
The Guardian, Tuesday 9 October 2012 12.06 EDT
Helen Nicoll, who has died aged 74, was best known as the writer of the Meg and Mog books for children. When we first decided to create a picture book about a witch and her cat, in the early 1970s, my condition as the illustrator was that if the witch were to make a spell, it must never work – and that is how the series began. Helen and I were taken on by the editor Judith Elliott at Heinemann, who immediately asked for two books instead of one. The books are now in their fifth decade.
Helen's style in everything she did was to be clear, brief and to the point. She wanted things to be right – for instance, when we worked on the book Meg's Castle, I drove her on a research tour of Welsh castles, in appalling weather, and she came up with perhaps my favourite spell: "Double trouble/ Rock and rubble/Oil boil/And cauldron bubble." Needless to say, the spell didn't work – as we had agreed.
At the time, Helen lived near Marlborough in Wiltshire, while I live in Barnes, south-west London, so we had to develop a way of working together. We hit on the idea of meeting at the Membury service station on the M4. This became our routine. We were regulars, the friendly staff didn't seem to mind and I always brought a little bunch of flowers to put on our table. We spent many frenzied hours struggling with stories and pictures, accompanied by any number of cups of tea. Helen was an inspiring but merciless collaborator and usually managed to get her way with her innate charm..........
(snip)
Lenona.
0 new messages