I was painfully aware that, around the book shops, and especially around the most accessible ones—the shelves of paperbacks in the corner store, the stand in the railway station—there was not a great deal of material that catered to the teenager. So—thought I—"I'll do something about this!" I pictured myself turning out books that would not be so unsophisticated as to insult the young ego—not so trivial as to insult the young (and often deep) intelligence—yet not filled with adult experience far beyond their own, which I suspect leads to a distorted view of reality. I dreamed of a Utopia where any fourteen-year-old might walk up to a bookstall—any small bookstall near home—and pluck from the shelf a slice of good literature, suited to both his tastes and his development!…

Surely a young, growing person is entitled to hope, as well as truth! To glimpses of courage and fidelity, as well as cravenness and triumphant lust! And to a brand of humour that is not sick! I don't believe in telling lies—part of my writing programme was to tell the truth at all times—but surely a young person, growing up, is entitled to be armed, with moral and spiritual weapons, before being plunged head first into the battle!

So—feeling this way—I embarked on my first book for young people…. [What] I have to say can be said to them! Not that my characters are children. They are more like the young adults who are only a short step away from the age group of my readers. I have often noticed, with relish, how childish many adults are, and what good sense one sometimes sees in children. (p. 24)

And as to "how" do I write, for my chosen readers? Firstly, not so well as I'd like to, who does? The first essential, as I see it, is to discuss something that concerns them. I may be quite wrong, but (until recently, at least) I've felt that in this country they are interested in the present and the future, not the past. For this reason my books are set in the present; the writing of historical works I leave to others. Though my built-in barometer tells me that this may be changing. But even now, I have a feeling that it is perhaps only girls, in their wisdom, who like to escape into the past. I would like it if my books could be enjoyed by both boys and girls. I try to give them a "hard core". Now, in this day and age (as in any other) the most important problem facing adolescents is simply growing up. Now that I think of it, this seems to always be my theme.

Then again, a writer must always write to please himself…. I read once in a writer's magazine of a fox dancing, "… all alone in a clearing, waving his brush in the sun." So must the creative writer be. If his dance does not please himself, it is not a dance, but a pathetic travesty. So I write of things, people and places which please me, hoping that, as I am a microcosm of mankind, they will please others. And as I write, I play a sort of game with myself—a dance just for myself, that, if others see it, may please them, too; but if they don't, well never mind. This is a game of analogy. I propound to myself a theorem. In "Season of the Briar" it went something like this—"Life is like a mountain ahead of us all. There are people who are compulsive climbers; and other people who keep to a made pathway that finds a safe route over or around the mountain; and others who elect to live in a sheltered valley, at the foot of it." And so on. More recently, there was the idea behind "Sapphire for September".

It went somehow this-wise—"Life is a precious thing, it is a precious stone. Each of us has this gift. We can cut and polish it and make it into a jewel. We can buy things with it, or sell it or give it away; we can lose it and find it again—most likely in the ashes of past experience, perhaps changed, but indestructible. We might not know its true nature, but perhaps this does not matter; what matters is that, having been given the moonstone gift of life, we can go on to find the star stone of self-fulfilment; this way we may have a gem to lend and a gem to spend—finding ourselves, phoenix-like, when the dreams of childhood are nothing but ashes."

I think that this was the riddle that I set myself, behind the story of Binny Flambeau and her crazy friends…. Of course, one can only write about people when one knows them very well. Because of this, I have to live with my people; their world has to be just as real to me as this other world, where I cook and shop and have my being. During the writing of the first draft of the book, one is still only making the acquaintance of one's characters. I write gropingly, mainly because at this time I can't be sure of their reactions. I have to feel my way. I could fall into the pit of setting the wrong tasks for the wrong people, so that they would be forced into doing things which they would not do, if left to themselves. The second time through, writing is easy, for, having worked out the correct circumstances, the characters will now take care of the rest.

When I set about writing "Sapphire", my first step was to join a lapidary club…. All this time the characters were growing more and more clearcut, more irrepressible. But Binny Flambeau herself—I could not get close to her at first. "If only I could see her!" I thought. I took to watching out for her, among faces in crowds. One day I saw her. She was in a school uniform, hurrying to a train at peak hour, with another girl. The fleeting glimpse was enough. From the face of the unknown girl, Binny became tangible. From then on, she was as real to me as my own daughter would be, if I had one!

Now she's left home, of course, and gone out into the book shops. (Though not, unfortunately, to those railway station stalls!) But there are endless teenagers, fictitious amalgams of factual flesh and blood, with stories to be told—growing up has endless facets and connotations! No need to put the cover on the typewriter! (pp. 25-6)