Katie Morag (August 2005)

Mairi was born in Gourock, Scotland in 1939. At the age of 17 she took a job as a mother's help on the island of Coll in the Hebrides. There began a life-long love affair with islands and small communities bounded by the sea.

She studied at Edinburgh College of Art and then taught for a few years before moving to the Isle of Coll in the early '60s with her husband and young family. There, in a house with no electricity, water only available from a well, and a two mile walk to the nearest neighbour, she began illustrating for other authors. As writer and illustrator, the Katie Morag books are based on her life there at that time.