Relatively Speaking

I can see books ranged beyond him, and everything is lit by an appealing skylight. He looks the epitome of established success - and is. But Scheffler had to find his own way, independently from what his family expected of him.

“I always liked drawing,” he recalls.

“I could see I had friends who liked my drawings which they made them smile - but it took me a while to see that this was my profession. At arts college

With Axel Scheffler by Christopher Jackson

Fame has its peculiar pockets. The man I’m talking to could walk down any street unmolested. And if you were sat next to him at a dinner party you might not know the identity of the man with the polite and surprisingly thick German accent. But his name is one of the most ubiquitous on the planet.

At 63, Axel Scheffler is best-known as the illustrator of The Gruffalo and its sequel The Gruffalo’s Child. The first alone has sold 13 million copies in 59 editions worldwide, and has been made into a film. It’s a favourite book of Michelle Obama - and just about every parent. Did his parents encourage him in his chosen career? At first, there was friction. “They weren’t artistic,” he explains. “My father was a businessman and my mother was a housewife. So yes, my father considered me a hopeless case when it came to anything to do with numbers and business. But they were fine in the end.”

Did they know before they died how successful he’d been? “They saw the beginning of it, yes. The Gruffalo was beginning to be successful before they went.”

Scheffler talks to me over Zoom from his studio in the house he shares with his wife and 13 year old daughter.

I ask if he sees positives in the NHS art in the windows now. He is immediately enthusiastic: “I think it’s lovelyespecially the chalk drawings on the pavement round here in Richmond. It’s very touching, something which has been around for so long - chalk on a pavement or a wall. It’s very nice and retro.”