Zimbabwean born writer Lauren St John explains how her childhood and love of animals has influenced the writing of her children's story, The White Giraffe.

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LAUREN ST JOHN interviewed by NIKKI GAMBLE

Lauren St John was born in Rhodesia in 1966 and lived on a farm there until she was 16. She worked as a journalist for several years and has written biographies of sporting heroes and Nashville musicians - golf and country music being two of her obsessions - for Transworld, Picador and Fourth Estate. Her memoir of growing up during independence in Zimbabwe will be published by Hamish Hamilton in spring 2007. She lives in London.

What was it like growing up in Africa?

I was incredibly blessed in that I grew up on a farm that had 100 acres of game reserve. It was paradise really. We lived in a thatched house on the banks of a river and we had a pet giraffe called Jenny. She was almost tame. You could get to within five feet of her, but you couldn’t touch her. I think we could have tamed her, but we didn’t want to because she was so beautiful the way she was. Animals, for the most part, should be left wild. All of my family are absolutely animal bonkers. We had a herd of about 60 impala, two very dangerous ostriches that were always chasing people, and monkeys. We were always adopting cats, dogs, horses…. We had a baby monkey and at various times I had three pet pythons and pet warthogs. I was left to my own devices because my sister was about eight years younger than me and I lived in one of those households where we didn’t really have anything to do with our parents until the evenings. If you grow up on a farm in Africa, that’s pretty much the way it is. From a very young age kids have to be self-reliant. Early in the morning I’d go horse riding or into the game reserve and sit in the bush with the animals.

We think of the bush as being a very dangerous place, so how did you learn to cope with those dangers?

Well, I don’t think anybody ever sits you down and warns you, because the dangers are an obvious part of daily life. We lived on the banks of a river and we kept chickens, so our garden was like a snake pit. We found seven in one day, and we totted up 26 pythons in our chicken run before we stopped counting. So somebody is always being bitten or is about to be bitten. We had crocodiles and snakes in the river where I used to swim.

 I also grew up in the middle of a war, so we were in constant danger. I used to go into the game reserve for hours, and hours on my own; there was not a soul around and we were in the middle of a war, anything could have happened to me. When I look back I absolutely shudder. But I also think parents don’t trust their kids enough, no matter how, scatty they appear to be, they have quite a strong sense of self preservation. The more you trust kids to look after themselves, the more resourceful they are likely to be.

Where did the idea for The White Giraffe come from?

Well, it was really, really, really weird because I never ever had any desire to write a children’s book. I once tried to write a novel and it was so bad it cured me of the idea of writing novels. So I settled for writing write non-fiction. Then one day, about two years ago just before Christmas, I was walking down the street in Greenwich and an image came into my head of a little girl riding a giraffe. And I thought, wouldn’t that be the coolest thing on earth, if you could actually ride a giraffe. Straightaway the entire story came into my head, I went home, and immediately wrote it down on an A4 sheet of paper. At first I thought it was a picture book for little kids that I might write when I had retired.

Shortly after, I was away in Africa, for a month, and I found I couldn’t stop thinking about it. When I returned home, I decided to have a little play with it. One Saturday I sat down and wrote the first chapter. I had the best time; it was just so much fun. On the following Monday I went to back to my non-fiction writing and I found it so dreary, so I decided to spend the afternoon writing my story. That was it; I couldn’t stop. I wrote the first draft in a month. It was a dreary February and I was sitting beneath the skylight with the grey rain above me, but I could magic myself to incredible places. I could sit on an escarpment having a camp fire breakfast looking down at the animals and watching the dawn come up. I felt like I was living the experience. I could see, feel and smell everything so clearly. I also had the strangest feeling from the minute I started writing that the story really existed. I never consciously thought up a single name or a single plot twist. Every morning I just had the idea that I was sitting down, listening for the story.

How did the characters emerge?

I felt from the word go that I knew all the characters. If somebody asked me about one of them I’d say, “Oh, well this is their background, and they’ve done this and this”. And they’d say, “but you haven’t actually put that.” I realised that just because I knew about the back story didn’t mean the readers would, and that I had to make things clear for them too.

The way that you describe the writing process is like a piece of theatre running in your head….

 It was a very filmic experience. I felt so strongly that I could smell, and taste and touch everything. For me, as a writer, whether I’m writing a journalistic piece or a novel, I think the most crucial, thing is that the reader can live the experience. If I can’t make somebody feel like they’re sitting on the escarpment, tasting the breakfast and feeling the sun on the skin, I’ve failed. As a reader, that’s what I expect from a book.

 I think people underestimate that appeal to the imagination in journalistic writing.

Absolutely. When I used to report on sport, if I was standing at the Master’s Tournament in Augusta, then I felt it was my duty to be able to transport people there, to help them feel and see what I was seeing and feeling.

Thank you Lauren St John for talking to Write Away