Trying...to colour in the UK

Telling you the story of one of my biggest and newest endeavours

Emma and Jeremy - behind the scenes on a photoshoot for The Sunday Times

This week marks 18 months since the germ of an idea randomly appeared in our house. Ideas rarely visit when you beckon them. They are a bit like the naturally cool kids at school: saunter up when they feel like, effortlessly cool and just, well, gorgeous.

And despite being in the throes of new parenthood for the second time (a gruelling journey you followed me on) and generally knackered, my husband, Jeremy, to his absolute credit did something about it.

He made a colouring book on his computer. And then asked the most opinionated person in his life for their opinion. (Me). I didn’t hold back. That book, filled with landmarks of our local area, made from photos we took, became ‘Colour In…Herne Hill’ - and the first of what we had no idea would become more than 150 colouring books. The spark of the idea came while walking around our local park with our then five year-old son who was asking us about the big clock and we were trying to find a good way of explaining local landmarks to him and failing. We didn’t want to use screens and make it all about photos.

I counselled that there must be a colouring book of our neighbourhood. And yet. And yet. There wasn’t. I looked up Brixton colouring books and Herne Hill ones in my bid to colour in the streets I know and love, having pounded them during successive lockdowns, frustrating failed IVF rounds and two maternity leaves.

This is a shortened version of the story of the messy, kind-of-crazy, lovely birth of Colour Your Streets, our family publishing and media company a year and a half ago. We are now mapping the whole of the UK (and beyond) in colouring books and adding three to four new areas a week.

And it suddenly struck me as a bit odd that I haven’t mentioned to you on here, one of the great tryings of my life today: building this project - which my husband has now left his corporate job to do full-time; at times has seen our house become a warehouse of books and our living room, a post depot. (Our books are thankfully now housed in a warehouse quite sweetly and by chance in Nottingham, the city where Jeremy and I met 20 years ago at uni.)

It also means that alongside my journalism, writing and broadcasting, I now work with my husband. Something I reflected upon recently in a magazine column:

“Weirdly, I recommend working with your partner – especially at this particularly frenetic junction in our lives with two demanding jobs and two small children. Perhaps it’s just our personalities, but there's something to be said for having a joint creative project which is something we can work towards in the hours where we are effectively locked down with sleeping or napping children. Don’t get me wrong – we are very, very tired. That hasn’t improved with my radio job starting at 3.30 am a few days a week. And we still love flopping down onto the sofa to watch TV as much as we can.

“But all that time we used to spend clubbing, going to the films or a gallery, or just lazing about with our pals or travelling? We use it differently. We're in the trenches of young family life, with all the joys and frustrations that brings. Having a cool initiative that allows us to work (from home) with many communities, institutions, charities, and creative outlets has been invigorating. Like a decent face scrub. It has made our world bigger at a time when it can feel smaller and smaller. And the joy people get from colouring in streets they know and love and then sharing their images with us? Infectious.

“It has also made that transition to double parenthood weirdly a bit gentler as we can still feel like us, as we try to snatch moments that do just that. Finding those times is a journey, especially if you have grown up together, as we have, having met at university when we were 21 and are now hitting 40. We are still figuring out what our new leisure time – the little that we get of it – looks like. Answers on a postcard, please!”

The other thing I wanted to share on here, in my first mention of this family creative and business endeavour on my newsletter, are the conversations fuelled by colouring. True to form, as a broadcaster, I am always about the chat.

But I have also always enjoyed colouring in, drawing and doodling - having loved the four evening drawing courses I have completed over the years since moving to London. I can actively feel my mind taking a walk and other things coming to fore with a fine pencil or a chubby marker or a bit of chalk in my hand.

And when we made our first book outside of London, ‘Colour In….Manchester’ (natch, for the Manc over here) even I was taken aback by the stories tumbling out of me as I coloured in Manchester town hall with our son and remembered how excited I used to be to see the giant inflatable Santa hoisted onto the side of the building each Christmas. And then one particularly inclement year, the lovely inflatable popped and looked like a sad squashed tomato stuck to the beautiful building. I was bereft and asked my mum to drive really slowly around Albert Square so I could take in the sheer drama of this moment.

This is now one of our boy’s favourite stories. He loves a drama, like his mother.

And I have been so cheered and touched with some of the colouring in stories we have received from those kind enough to share them, as they explain the importance of seeing key parts of their city, town or neighbourhood reflected to them in this way. Annette Bainbridge wrote to us: “Lovely books for me to remember as a child born in Balham, lived in Tooting from 1938 to 1952. Such memories with all the landmarks of those areas. Thank you.”

Or Leanne Hoare who said: “Daughter is in last year of uni at Leeds and was so happy going through the pages where lots of buildings hold great memories for her!”

Or Shirley Whiteman: “Bought Cambridge colouring book as a gift for a person with Alzheimer’s who has also lived near the city for many years. I know it will be very much enjoyed, both for the colouring and as a conversation starter with her carers."

But I still think my favourite learning comes from how consistently children see the world differently. A classic example is when I witnessed a child colour in the scene of a local beloved art gallery. Instead of perhaps focusing on the sight itself and beauty of the fine building, he was far more interested in the bench outside of the gallery. “Look, look. I sat there eating a cake!” he exclaimed, before promptly colouring in this otherwise innocuous seat with the precision of a surgeon. And then proudly drawing himself on said bench.

Delightful.

I would genuinely love to know any of your stories of colouring in and drawing; where it takes you and what memories are prompted. And, if you were so kind, where you think we should map next in our quest to cover the country. We very much take requests.

Colour well folks.