What I think about the governments vote on increasing university fees in the UK

When people ask me what I do I usually say, I write and illustrate books and I am an artist. That is the short answer.

This is the long answer.

I work at home in a small house in Pembrokeshire. For the most part I illustrate books. At the moment I work for only one publisher, Frances Lincoln in London. They employ about ten people directly, designers, editors, sales people, pr people. Indirectly there are freelance sales staff also.

The books are scanned in the UK so in an indirect way part of my painting also helps keep people at the repro house in work.

The books are all printed in China, which then takes me into the import export business for the first time, and shipping. So printed and bound books are shipped back to the UK where they are housed in a warehouse distribution point in Oxfordshire, Bookpoint. I know that by this stage they are a tiny drop in an ocean of books, as Bookpoint is huge, but it is all the drops gathered together that keeps all the people working in that place and each drop is important.

From there my books go out to book sellers, usually independents in the UK as the chains these days only ever seem to stock the really big sellers, but none the less my books give content to these shops and therefore indirectly again keep people in work.

Meanwhile the sales staff have been busy at Frances Lincoln. British children’s books are some of the best in the world and my latest book is selling very well in France and also in Denmark, Spain ( in Spanish and Catalan) and in the USA and Australia, New Zealand and Canada. I tried to count up how many books at one time but my head gets confused after so many hundreds of thousands, all printed and shipped and sold around the world and in the UK. ( Can You See a Little Bear alone sold in excess of 230 000, The Greatest Gift over 100 000- I liked the Greek edition best).

I also sell paintings, privately and through a gallery, which again is a contribution to the income of another family.
In the past I have worked designing card for card companies and helped those companies grow from tiny companies to turning over millions.

More important than all of this is that if all goes well the books end up in the hands of families who then share the stories. If I am lucky then they are taken into the hearts of those families, children sleep with the book tucked under their pillow, dream with the stories and wrap themselves up in the world of books.

I went to college for 4 years. I had the minimum grant, despite the fact that my parents were not well off, and my fees were paid. Last year I paid more in tax in one year than the sum total of my fees and 3 years grant.
If I had not had my grant, just enough to enable me to pay for my digs, a part time job paid for food and paint, I would have left school at 18 and got a job in the porcelain factory in Worcester.

The Royal Worcester Porcelain factory did offer me a job when I left school, but they also said they thought I would do better to go to college and follow my heart.
The factory is now closed.

If I had faced having to take out a student loan to pay for my fees, food, accommodation, materials there is no way that I would have even considered going to college. Debt was simply a thing you did not enter into.