Yes, Hairy Maclary saw the first light of day at 7 Grass Street.
Lynley Dodd had published three children’s books in the United Kingdom when she found herself without a publisher. Publishers in the UK were facing a downturn in the early 1980s, and she couldn’t find one in either the UK or New Zealand for her manuscript Wake Up, Bear.
At the time I was on the New Zealand Literary Fund committee, and during a coffee break Elizabeth Alley turned to me and said, ‘Isn’t it strange that Lynley Dodd can’t find a publisher?’ I had met Lynley twice, and it didn’t take me long to get to the telephone and ask her if she would be interested in discussing her manuscript with a very small publishing company. She agreed to come and talk to us, and brought along her two manuscripts, The Apple Tree and The Smallest Turtle.
Lynley Dodd is very conscientious. She had been awarded the Choysa Bursary for Children’s Writers, which funded her for 12 months’ writing. The expectation was that the book or books produced during that time would be published. She was therefore very worried that she hadn’t got a publisher and was happy for us to take her two manuscripts and consider them for publication. We quickly decided we wanted to publish them.
Early in 1982, Lynley came round to our office in Grass Street, and asked us if we would consider Wake Up, Bear for publication. This manuscript had been offered to several British and New Zealand publishers before Lynley came to us. We saw no reason to turn it down, and when an agent offered to take the manuscript to the Frankfurt Book Fair to try and find overseas publishers to co-publish Wake Up, Bear with us, we agreed.
It was disconcerting to be rung from Frankfurt and told by the agent that we couldn’t publish Wake Up, Bear because Heinemann was publishing a similarly titled picture book. We tried to get proofs of their book from Heinemann, but without success. We were a new publisher and financially insecure, and so we rang Lynley, told her what had happened, and asked if she could do another picture book, and let us have it in March, just five months away.
Now I didn’t know Lynley well at that time, and I certainly didn’t know that it took her eight months to come up with a story, write the text and illustrate a picture book. I had almost asked for the impossible. However, a miracle happened. No more than two weeks later Lynley rang and asked if she could read a draft to me. I never allowed writers to read their picture book draft to me. They always wanted to, and had I agreed I would never have got any work done, because almost every mother in New Zealand thinks she can write a picture book. On this occasion, however, I agreed and Lynley came to our office, which was now 7 Grass Street because we had purchased the adjoining flat to the one in which we lived. With little ado she read to me the draft – indeed the finished text – of Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy. It was a memorable moment. I looked up and said, ‘Lynley, it’s a winner.’ Well, you have to get something right in publishing!
— Ann Mallinson, Bay View Online newsletter, May 2022