Mairi Hedderwick: Facts About the Author of the Katie Morag Books

Here are some facts about Mairi Hedderwick, the children’s writer, illustrator and the creator of the popular Katie Morag series.

Mairi Hedderwick was born on 2nd May 1939 in Gourock. Her father was Douglas Lindsay, an architect, and her mother was Margaret Crawford.
Her father died when she was thirteen years old, and she often felt lonely and out of place as a child.

She studied at Edinburgh College of Art. During the holidays she went to the Isle of Coll and worked as an au pair.
In 1962, she married Ronnie Hedderwick. After teaching art for a few years, Mairi moved to the Isle of Coll in the Hebrides, Scotland. They lived in a farmhouse without electricity or running water. Their closest neighbours were three miles away.
Mairi and Ronnie earned money by rearing sheep and cattle and by fishing for lobsters. Mairi also taught art lessons at the local primary school, sold her artwork to tourists and started her own printing company called the Malin Workshop. The Malin Workshop used manual printing techniques to print maps of the island, calendars and postcards.
At this point, Mairi also started to do some illustration work for the Scottish children’s writer, Jane Duncan.
Mairi, Ronnie and their two children, Mark and Tammie, lived on the Isle of Coll for ten years. They had to move because there was no secondary school on the island.
Mairi started to think about writing her own children’s books, and the first Katie Morag story, Katie Morag Delivers the Mail, was published in 1984.
Mairi moved back to Coll in 1990. She now lives in a house close to her daughter and grandchildren.
Their are now more than ten Katie Morag stories, and Mairi has written and illustrated many other children’s books.
She has also written four books about her travels through Scotland.

A List of the Katie Morag Books

What next? Learn more about other famous children’s authors.