Inspiration

Published on Wednesday, January 22nd, 2020

When Dick was alive, one of the most common questions that children would ask him was ‘where do you get ideas for your stories?’

Being a lifelong lover of animals, it is no surprise that most of Dick’s books are about them. It must have helped that all of Dick’s family loved animals, so that from a young age, he spent lots of time around pet dogs, cats, birds, rodents and even the odd badger!

Dick kept pets all his life too, and used to breed budgerigars, dogs, guinea pigs, rabbits, mice, rats and more! He was also a farmer for 20 years, so he got lots of opportunities to be around farm animals such as goats, cows and pigs (like Monty the boar, pictured below).

So in answer to those children’s questions, Dick wrote about what he loved, and what he knew.