Bestselling Oi Frog! author says Essex childhood inspired his writing

Kes Gray's work is the subject of a new exhibition at Chelmsford Museum

A bestselling children's author said he only realised how much his home county had inspired his writing after organising an exhibition about his work.

With more than three million copies of his stories sold, Kes Gray is well known for books such as Oi Frog!, created with illustrator Jim Field, and the Daisy series.

After looking through his cupboards to prepare for the new exhibition at Chelmsford Museum, he realised how much of his writing was inspired by links to his Essex childhood.

"I started to write down all of the little memory triggers that I could find, and there were loads of them - there were loads of more than I ever realised," he said.

One such memory, a trip with his friend Tim to Baddow Recreation ground to collect a bucket full of frogspawn, led to the creation of a book character.

"I'm a big fan of tadpoles, and I came up with a character called Badpole who was a grumpy tadpole because he'd been taken from the pond he was living in by a boy, like me, with a bucket, like me, taken home and put in a shed," he said.

"I can promise you, probably, that every frog you ever find on Moulsham Lodge Estate today is a descendant of a bucket full of frog spawn that Tim and I would have transferred all the way from Baddow Rec."

Kes Gray, pictured at an event at Harwich Library, is the author of the bestselling Oi! books series

The idea for an exhibition began after Gray, who now lives in Colchester, visited the Museum of Chelmsford for the first time in half a century last summer and realised how strong his ties were to the city.

"I thought, 'actually, I'm Chelmsford-themed'," he said.

"I grew up here, and I know there are exhibitions upstairs about writers, Essex writers, and I thought 'Well, I'm an Essex writer'."

He reached out, and the museum agreed to let him fill a space with toys and illustrations.

He added: "I'm not only a children's author, I'm a collector of childhood memorabilia. I've got stuff from my own childhood, I've re-bought stuff that I might have been persuaded to sell over the years, so I could fill the toy room ten times over easily.

"I've been rummaging through cupboards and storage units that I haven't looked at or been into for a very long time, and it's been quite cathartic, really, because I've been able to give all of my nonsense and rubbish and stuff to the museum."

The exhibition opens to the public on Saturday.