Britain says "Farewell" to an old Northern Irish writer of children's stories called Sam McBratney, who gave the world 'Guess How Much I Love You'

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Sam has died at the age of 77 and although Sam was the author of more than 50 books and scripts, he was best known for 'Guess How Much I Love You', the story of Little Nutbrown Hare and Big Nutbrown Hare and their efforts to express their love for each other. First published in 1994, illustrated with Anita Jeram’s watercolours it became a children’s, sold more than 50 million copies worldwide, been translated into 57 languages and gave Sam his place in the pantheon of writers of stories for children. 

He was born the son of Ina and Samuel in Belfast, Northern Ireland during the Second World War in the Spring of 1943, where his family were forced to evacuate their home near the city's shipyards, which were a Luftwaffe target, when he was two years old. Sam didn't have children's books in their first home on Belfast's York Road, nor their second in Lisburn. He recalled : "There weren’t picture books in Northern Ireland. There were hardly bananas, much less books." His was an austere post-war childhood where, dressed in short trousers and Fair Isle jumpers in the 1950s, at home he read the Beano and Dandy kid's comics, which his "Dad used to bring home once a week, in his large gabardine pocket" and Dad's Zane Grey westerns and his mother's 'Woman's Weekly' and later reflected : "there was nothing else there to read." Then, "Gradually more and more things became available specifically for children. Like Enid Blyton's series of books, 'The Ship of Adventure' and all that." 

https://www.readingrockets.org/books/interviews/mcbratney

Sam recalled : "I was about 16 and I remember my mother asking me what was I going to do later on in life, and I said to her I might be a poet. There was a long pause and she actually said, 'You know you can be put in jail for stealing other people's words'. Looking back on that, I ask myself, it is true, but that was the attitude in our family. She had no clue it was possible for someone from the family to write." "Certainly, there wasn't a tradition in our house of telling stories".

He said that he had favourite moments in books which stayed with him :"Robin Hood shoots an arrow and says, "Bury me where it lands"; Jim Hawkins hides in a barrel of apples; the lame boy fails to make it through the mountainside and so on. One story which made a big impression on me was 'Rip Van Winkle'. I loved the idea of playing about with time."

Sam studied hard for his 11-Plus exam and got into the Quaker, Friends Grammar School. Very much the grammar school boy, his father skilled typesetter on the Belfast Telegraph's printing works and Sam recalled : "I used to go through the paper and point out mistakes and blame them on dad." At the age of 17 he won a scholarship in 1960 to study for a degree in 'history and political science' at Trinity College, in Dublin and started to take a notebook about with him there, to record all his thoughts and began to write historical texts.

After graduation in 1964, he became a teacher and taught at a further education college, a grammar school and a primary school, while writing at night in various genres, from science fiction to radio plays. His first attempt, in 1969, was the autobiographical 'Mark Time' which he described as “a pre puberty love story.” Like many authors’ first books, he described the process of getting published as "the usual story of the rejection slip. Stick it in the drawer."  Finally in 1976, it was picked up and published by Abelard-Schuman. He recalled : "My mother lived to see some of my earlier success and was probably very surprised by it" although she recalled that when he was a boy, his "nose was never out of a book". Sam said of himself that : "On the whole I would say that my interest in children's literature just derives from the fact that I am basically an introspective character. And I hardly knew what I'm thinking until I see it written down." 

By the time he was 47, in 1990, he took early retirement from teaching to concentrate on his writing and by that time he had published twenty-three novels, most of them targeted at young adult readers. This was the year his 'School Trip to the Stars' was published and he recalled : "I was standing in the classroom and I saw a star at half three. I thought, wouldn’t that be great to take a school trip up there. I wrote the heart, for myself, or for a publisher." His acclaimed 1993 young adult novel, 'The Chieftain's Daughter', a fifth century story of young love and tragedy, was praised by critics as being among the most significant works of children's historical fiction published in Ireland. 

When it came to the genesis of 'Guess How Much I Love You', which was published in 1994, Sam said : "My editor in London asked me to write a picture book" and recalled : "I knew I didn't want it to be bears because there were a lot of bear stories about at that time, and I was just sitting in the kitchen one day when from somewhere in that remote land between the ears out popped Little Nutbrown Hare. And where that came from I have no idea, but it's just so perfect" and "What I tried to do was capture tender moments between the big ones and the wee ones. It took about six months - it's not as easy as it looks" "And for those six months every word you write is fighting for its place on the page." 

In the event, the book was written in 395 words and Sam's expectations were low : "I expected that picture book to go like all the others, all the other books. You know, might get five years out of it, might get six, then after that you'll not be able to buy it in the shops anymore."

Sam was fulsome in his praise of the work of the book's illustrator, Anita Jeram, who had "beautifully captured the ugly, awkward ganglyness of hares, I mean, they're not bunnies. I mean, people call them rabbits and I get reaction about that, you know, they're hares. And it's one of the triumphs of the book I think to get the name Little Nutbrown Hare and to have them so wonderfully rendered by Anita."

Donna Cassanova at Walker Books said : “It is also the true mark of the man that he never failed to recognise the role that Anita Jeram’s exquisite illustrations play in the success of 'Guess How Much I Love You'. They were a literary pairing of the highest calibre. Sam faced everything in life, and death, with such great, good grace and humour. He always smiled out at the world and I feel so lucky to have felt the warmth of his smile.”

Despite the book's success, Sam remained modest and self-effacing and maintained that it was “a lighthearted little story designed to help a big one and a wee one enjoy the pleasure of being together”. Last year, at a celebration of the book's 25th anniversary he said : “I’d like to share with you one comment a father sent me. He wrote : ‘On good nights my little girl loves me all the way to the moon, but on bad nights she only loves me to the door.’ If you’re a parent (or a grandparent like myself), here’s hoping that you mostly make it to the moon. And back ...”

Then he looked up beyond the thorn bushes,  out into the big dark night. Nothing could be further than the sky.  "I love you right up to the MOON," he said, and closed his eyes. 

"Oh, that's far," said Big Nutbrown Hare. "That is very very far." 

Big Nutbrown Hare settled Little Nutbrown Hare into his bed of leaves. He leaned over and kissed him goodnight. 

Then he lay down close by and whispered with a smile, "I love you right up to the moon...AND BACK." 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPLwMxogYDU

Sam said : 

"The best thing about the book is that I know that every day somewhere in the world a mum or dad will reach for it and read it to the most precious person they have in the world, their child. That thought really pleases me."

Readers' comments :

'That's a wonderful tribute' : Ann. London. 

'Just read - and sent to my daughter' : USA

'That was a great read' : Garrick. Oregon. USA

'This is a really interesting read' : Holly. Liverpool

'An amazing tribute. Will share with my six year old this weekend' : Kavitha. UK

'What a beautiful tribute' : Veronica. UK

'This was a beautiful tribute' : Cordelia. Annapolis Valley. Nova Scotia. Canada