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Captured by a butterfly
Butterflies have always held a special significance for Newport-based Jean French and her family – so when she decided to write a children ’ s story book , there was never any doubt about who the main character would be .
Granny Butterfly is the title of her first book – and the magical winged creature has so captured Jean ’ s imagination that she is already writing book number three ! As a first-time author at the age of 74 , Jean says she ’ s thrilled with the warm reception that her book has received since going on sale on Amazon , and in several Island bookshops . So what made her take up her pen when most people are content to settle into retirement ? “ It came completely out of the blue ” she explains . “ I was sitting on the beach at Sandown with my husband Roger last year , just looking up at the sky , and suddenly I announced that I was going to write a children ’ s story . “ He immediately said why not make it about a butterfly , because my mum Evelyn , who died 20 years ago , always used to say she would come back as a butterfly ”. That was all the prompting Jean needed , and thus her story writing began . She explains that mum Evelyn was buried in a woodland burial site at Arreton , and when her children , grandchildren and greatgrandchildren began visiting with flowers , they always said they were
going to see ‘ Granny Butterfly ’. In the book , Granny Butterfly appears as a beautiful Red Admiral , and among the other characters Jean has dreamed up for her series of adventures in Honeysuckle Meadow , there ’ s Bertrum the Clouded Yellow , Besty a little Blue , Boris , a Purple
Emperor and Bella the Peacock . Jean has enlisted the skills of amateur illustrator Robert Hyde , a golfing pal of her husband ’ s , to produce exquisite watercolour images of the various butterflies . She says she hopes this will help young readers to learn to identify the different varieties .
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