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On a recent visit to Chatsworth, Joseph Coelho took time to chat about the inspiration for his new festive story, Henry and the Lion's Christmas Feast, the importance of STEM subjects and cultural attractions to inspiring young minds, and his passion for making Christmas cake. 

You can also listen to the interview or read a transcript of it below. 

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What do you like best about writing for children?

What I love about writing books and poetry for kids is that you really get the opportunity to play. There’s something about a young audience that is so receptive to new characters and strange new worlds and you get to have a lot of fun, and you get to become a kid again yourself through the writing. That's what's always appealed to me about writing for young people.

How did Henry and the Lion’s Christmas Feast come about?

I received a lovely invitation from Chatsworth to write a new book to inspire the Christmas decorations held here every year. I jumped at the chance because it was such a wonderful and beautiful challenge.

I got the opportunity to come down to Chatsworth during the Christmas decorations (in December 2022) and to join the visitors going around the route, seeing the beautiful decorations and seeing how people inhabit and experience the space. 

I got some great ideas, especially going through the Sculpture Gallery where I saw two giant lions at the end of the tour. I felt that they needed to be in a book! They became the little lion that we have in Henry and the Lion’s Christmas Feast.

I was also inspired by the life of Henry Cavendish who was a scientist and did this amazing scientific feat of weighing the world. With the help of the Chatsworth team, I got to find out and research a lot about Henry Cavendish, his scientific endeavours and how he was really interested in the makeup and the nature of air and geology, and how he often wore the same style of coat. I found out that as soon as his coat became old he would have a new one made in the exact same style. So, all the elements for a character were there and it was lovely to be able to bring a part of Henry Cavendish’s story to life through this picture book and poem. 

Above: Portrait of Henry Cavendish

Had you been to Chatsworth before this visit?

I'd heard about Chatsworth but I hadn't been before, it was on my list of places to visit. I'd heard wonderful things.  On arriving, you come over the hill and you see the house from a distance and it's so impressive, it takes your breath away! That was so lovely to experience, especially knowing that I was visiting as I was going to be involved in a project that would allow me to write a story inspired by the space. 

What did you find most interesting about Henry Cavendish?

I started reading about Henry Cavendish and got some wonderful information from the Chatsworth team about his life and about the different scientific explorations he went down - he was quite a particular character who very much kept himself to himself but was interested in all different types of scientific inquiry. 

I did a deep dive into how he managed to weigh the Earth which he did by building a sort of outdoor apparatus using steel balls and a balancing system and spying through a brick wall at, I think it was a steel sphere, and looking at how one sphere attracted the other. It was just incredible and to be able to, somehow through science, deduce the weight of the Earth from that very complicated experiment…I thought was amazing. 

It was so lovely to create a story about a character interested in science and a really lovely opportunity as well because, rightly so, there is a push for stories around STEM subjects – Science, Technology and Engineering - to get more young people interested in these areas and to let all young people know that it's for them and there's a wonderful and exciting new world to discover. I certainly learned a lot.  I'm very much an artist but have dabbled in the Sciences and I was certainly inspired to find out about Henry Cavendish’s various experiments.  

Why do you think children are fascinated by science?

I think what captures kids' imaginations about science is the discovery of the unknown - being able to unearth nature and life's mysteries and the fact that you can repeat an experiment and get the same results again, and again - there's something very comforting in that. You can start to unpick the world and the makeup of the world, and I think that is really alluring.  

I think children naturally have curiosity; picking up stones and pebbles on the beach, finding insects in the garden, or asking those strange questions that only kids might ask. I remember asking my Mum when I was a kid, I said “How do pigeons know that you're behind them without seeing you?” and my Mum said, “They turn their heads of course”. What I think I was questioning was the idea of extra sensory perceptions and how animals are able to sense you, but I quite liked my Mum's answer. 

How did the character of Lion evolve?

I was going through the Sculpture Gallery and saw these two massive stone statues of two wonderful lions which see you off as you finish the tour. They're so characterful. They're these big sort of loping lazy lions. I thought it'd be great to put them in a book but to turn things on their head slightly I thought wouldn't it be interesting if we had a tiny lion.  We always associate lions with big beasts, these big large cats. I thought wouldn't it be funny if this huge house had a tiny little lion that sort of skulks around at night and gets up to mischief.

I thought how interesting it would be to put the Chatsworth Lion, this tiny Chatsworth Lion, and Henry Cavendish face-to-face and give them a little adventure together with, of course, a menace of mice. There are lots of mice in this story that get up to their own experiments and their own inventions.

Above: A 'menace' of mischievous mice, illustration by Vivien Mildenberger

What makes a Christmas story special?

I think the magic ingredients that make a Christmas story really special are things like food, I definitely think food needs to be there; winter and it being cold, getting that sense of snuggling up by a fire or under a blanket; kinship, so family and friends.

I tried to pour all these things into this book because we have the little Lion and Henry preparing for a big midnight Christmas Feast to which 'everyone's invited'. I wanted to create a sense of community.

Of course, we also have the Christmas staples of elves and Santa and there are snow people and snowball attacks so it was a great deal of fun getting all those Christmas elements in, plus plum puddings and the sort of traditional Christmas foods that we often think about this time of year. 

Above: '...everyone's invited...', illustration by Vivien Mildenberger

What do you think of Vivien Mildenberger’s illustrations?

When I first saw Vivien Mildenberger's illustrations for Henry and the Lion's Christmas Feast I was amazed, I think she's done an incredible job of bringing these two characters to life.  The Lion, he's got such a wonderful energy and I think the way she's kind of shown Henry with the weight of the world on his shoulders…I thought she did a gorgeous job. It really brought to mind ‘Christmas’.

Her illustrations are just very welcoming and sort of soft around the edges, but also have a kind of zany element which you especially see with the little Lion character and how he comes to life, and gets up to mischief.

Through the mice as well, it's incredibly special to think that my story will help inspire the decorations at Chatsworth this year.  I can't wait to go on the tour and to see the decorations in place, it feels like a great honour. I'm just so delighted to know that thousands of people are going to be walking around Chatsworth being inspired by Henry and the little Lion and the mice and all the Christmas mischief that they will get up to. 

Above, the Christmas feast, illustration by Vivien Mildenberger

What do you hope visitors will get from the experience?

I would like visitors to take away Joy. I want them to experience the decorations, to read the book, to see Vivien's wonderful illustrations and to feel a real sense of Christmas Joy and to get that excited bubbly feeling you get when you know Christmas is around the corner. 

I hope that visitors come to Chatsworth to see the decorations and get that feeling as they're going around and leave wanting to eat nothing but mince pies and Christmas pudding!

How important are places like Chatsworth, and other cultural venues, to young people?

I feel it's so important that young people have access to places like Chatsworth, and to museums and galleries and libraries because art, books and stories are made to be shared and they need to be shared widely.  

Through art, books, and gorgeous architecture, you get to not only broaden your horizons but to find out more about the world beyond your own doorstep. You also get to find out more about yourself as well as other people and so I think, for all these reasons, it's really important that, young people especially, get to have lots of different experiences.  Through easy access to a huge variety of artistic institutions and landscapes, I think you can help inspire and ignite creativity in everyone, but especially in children.

How do you spend Christmas?

I haven't done it yet and I need to do it, but what I love to do every Christmas is make my Christmas cake early. One year I did manage to make it about four months early, and then of course you feed the cake over those months so it can mature in flavour and that was great fun because it really sort of builds up the Christmas joy.

I quite like baking and I've got lots of different Christmas cake tins; I've got one that looks like a little house and I've got Bundt tins, these round doughnut-shaped tins in different designs, so I'll be making Christmas cake and getting that ready so it's nice and gooey and rich tasting in time for Christmas.

I'll also be rereading Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. I like to do that every Christmas, and I like to take time to reflect on the year gone by and look forward to the year to come.  I'm getting into the habit now of making plans and scheduling in free time and holidays a year in advance so that everything else can work around these; that's my top tip over the Christmas period. 

There are a few things I like to watch on TV; there's a series of Christmas ghost stories from the 70s and 80s which are a bit creepy and, I guess, in line with A Christmas Carol which started a tradition of Christmas being a time for sort of Christmasy ghost stories! I have a whole anthology of Christmas ghost stories which I quite like to dive into, but I also like to watch The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe which always gets me in the Christmas mood, or The Never Ending Story. There's something about these childhood films that takes me straight back to being a kid again and getting ready for Christmas!

Describe your perfect Christmas Feast?

At my Christmas Feast I would have several varieties of Christmas cake and Christmas pudding, with sozzled plums in candied fruit, there would have to be a lot of candied fruit! I really love Brussel sprouts! I didn't when I was a kid but I love them now, so Brussel sprouts done in various different ways; crispy ones, boiled ones that are slightly fried, ones that are a little bit raw in a salad… stuffing there's got to be lots of stuffing!  I do like a ‘bird inside a bird inside a bird’, so probably a goose crown with a turkey inside and with a duck inside that.