I have a little understanding of my actions. At this stage in my writing career, I was very busy writing my humorous fiction for older kids; the Worst Soccer Team Ever series of four novels—a very successful series at the time, published here by Reed Methuen, and in Australia and the United Kingdom by Penguin—and the Porter Brothers series published by HarperCollins. And others.

Maybe a little tired of writing funny stuff, one day, about 1993, I remembered The Blue Lawn, dragged out the handwritten manuscript and read it through. ‘This is quite good,’ I must have muttered to myself. ‘Nothing wrong with it.’ I typed it up, changing very little. I sent it to Penguin New Zealand who had already published some of my work, and would publish more in the future. It didn’t take very long for them to make up their mind. It was rejected on the grounds of suitability and taste, and—this one stung me—that if published it would irreparably harm my reputation. Suitably chastened, and feeling rather grubby, I put the story of poor David and Theo away again.

My good friends and fellow writers Tessa Duder and the late Gaelyn Gordon came to stay. We often stayed with each other and had strong friendships that had been built, initially, on our shared occupation. Gaelyn in particular was always quite demanding when it came to my work; she would always expect something new of mine to read, either in published or unpublished form. This time I had nothing to offer them, until I remembered The Blue Lawn, told them a little of the story and my recent mortification over the grounds of its recent rejection. Tessa read and appreciated the story. Gaelyn read it one night when she went to bed. ‘This has got to be published,’ she pronounced the next morning. ‘Let me have it. I’ll take it up to Paul Bradwell. I’m seeing him this week and I’ll tell him he’s got to publish it.’

I didn’t quite roll around on the floor laughing, but I did say, ‘You must be joking. Paul wouldn’t touch this one with a ten-foot bargepole.’ I remembered Possum Perkins!

‘Oh yes, he will,’ Gaelyn continued to pronounce.

Paul phoned me two or three days later. ‘I’m halfway through the book. It’s great. I want to publish it as soon as possible.’

I do remember saying, ‘Before you make a decision, Paul, it may be a good idea to finish reading the whole thing.’

‘I’d like to,’ he said. ‘The only problem is that there seems to be quite a few pages missing…’

He was right. The missing pages were all to be found under Gaelyn’s bed—bless her memory, one of the untidiest people I have ever known!

HarperCollins published the book in 1994 and reprinted it a year later. They published a new edition in 2004.

The publishing of the book coincided with a rather unpleasant blip in my health. I endured open-heart surgery in Wellington Hospital; a triple bypass operation. Physically, I recovered remarkably quickly. Mentally, things took rather longer. I had not counted on a massive black cloud of depression seeping into me. The better I got on the physical side, the worse I felt in my head.