From The Times
August 8, 2008
Interview with Lynley Dodd
Fiona Terry meets the creator of the classic children's character Hairy Maclary

If the strange tabby on the deck had been courting fame it had come to the right address. The New Zealand garden in which it stood, taunting the resident Burmese cat through the open patio doors, was that of Lynley Dodd, author and illustrator of among others, the much-loved Hairy Maclary series.
“Oh no, there's going to be a ding-dong row on the deck!” Dodd exclaimed, leaping up and abandoning her peppermint tea and home-made shortbread to avert what she could easily turn into inspiration for another humorous tale.
Her quick wit and wicked way with words shines in her work, which has been such a success that Hairy Maclary, the lovable rogue from Donaldson's Dairy, this year celebrates his 25th anniversary.
But the antics of the scruffy terrier and his pals might never have materialised. Dodd had been drafting a book about a bear until her publisher said to shelve it because a similar title was to be released in the UK. So she retreated to her office at home for new inspiration. “I keep an ideas book with all sorts of silly snippets and snatches of verse,” Dodd says. “As I opened it, out fell a page on which I'd sketched a little terrier three years beforehand, with four lines of verse.” It was to become the basis of Hairy Maclary from Donaldson's Dairy.

A series of books followed - Hairy Maclary now has nine tales of his own and there are nine others based around his chums Schnitzel von Krumm, Zachary Quack, and Slinky Malinki. Interspersed with these are other gems, including A Dragon in a Wagon and Wake Up, Bear.

Read the full interview at The Times online.