1 November 2012

Please note: this news article is in our archive. Articles were correct at time of publication, but should not be relied on for accuracy after the passage of time.

TOWN Council PR Geraldine Durrant is celebrating the release of her latest book, Pirate Gran and the Monsters.

Published by the National Maritime Museum, it is the third adventure of Geraldine’s feisty heroine Pirate Gran, who may have given up a life of crime, but still keeps a crocodile underneath her bed, and finds time to get up to mischief with her old shipmates Fingers O’Malley, Black Hearted Jack and Cut Throat Malone.

“I’ve been incredibly lucky,” said Geraldine. “The books have now been published in Australia, Canada and –  in both Spanish and Catalan –  in Spain.

“And the first two titles in the series – Pirate Gran and Pirate Gran goes for Gold –  are currently being adapted for the stage as an Arts Council project by the Scamp theatre company .

“Scamp specialises in children’s literature and has already adapted books by children’s laureates Michael Morpurgo and Julia Donaldson, so I am as surprised as I am delighted to find myself in such august company.”

The original Pirate Gran was the winner of a BBC short story competition to promote literacy and encourage parents and grandparents to read to their children, and it was the BBC who introduced Geraldine to artist Rose Forshall who has illustrated all three of her pirate books.

Their appearance on BBC London News to talk about the winning story was spotted by the National Maritime Museum who commissioned a longer version for publication.

“Rose is young enough to be my daughter but we work really well together and share the same rather quirky sense of humour.

“I knew from the first moment I saw Gran on paper that Rose had really captured what she was all about and I love the way she works all sorts of visual jokes into the illustrations. She’s absolutely brilliant!

“Our latest book was actually inspired by my little granddaughter Alice who ran into the sitting room one day screaming that there was a  ‘great big ‘normous spider’ in the kitchen.

“When my husband bravely went out to deal with it, he found it wasn’t a spider at all but a dried tomato stalk! So the book is all about the very silly pirate crew of the Black Barnacle  and the miseries they endure when their imaginations run riot.

“They think the terrible roaring they can hear from the sitting room is a monster, but it turns out only to be Grandpa snoring…while the gorilla in the cupboard is actually Pirate Gran’s fur coat. Gran of course sorts everything out satisfactorily and by the end of the book the pirates are brave enough to go to bed with the lights off.”

The two are currently collaborating on a new project, and Geraldine has a book featuring two very badly behaved grannies due out next year – although her new heroines are strictly landlubbers.

“They do say you should write about what you know, so my naughty grannies are largely autobiographical,” she laughed.