Lauren Child

I'm changing my two-week-old son's nappy. He bursts into tears. His tears explode my heart but I can't comfort him because I'm exploding too, only I wish I had the primal courage to cry out like him. I am unable to soothe him. To tell him everything will be OK, because I'm not sure that's true. I've not told anyone about the days of incessant racing thoughts and snakes of paranoia, the strangling anxiety and rampant insomnia. I'm embarrassed because it sounds 'strange', 'dramatic' and 'silly', but nothing is 'OK' any more. So how can I say, out loud, that the day my son was born, and the brutal, postnatal, abstract hours since, have been the very worst days of my life? Stunned with fear and medical intervention and now whatever this is.

My childhood memories of this time of year are - with a few exceptions - all good. The magical thing was the repeated traditions: decorations, Boxing Day walks, and New Year's Eve parties.

Sir Quentin Blake's (pictured left) life will be commemorated by fellow illustrators on Friday, with 90 drawings, each featuring a candle, along with artist Axel Scheffler's The Gruffalo (pictured right), as a special edition. Lauren Child, a picture book author and political cartoonist who is co-creator of The Edge Chronicles, and political cartoonist Chris Riddell, both contribute to the project. Sir Quentin, who is best known for his long-working relationship with children's writer Roald Dahl, said, "We have a large number of illustrators in the United Kingdom today, giving us a lot of joy in a language we can all understand." He has also donated 140 new works, many of which were created in his 90th year, for an auction in Bonhams to raise funds for the center of illustration.