In Zip's Apollo, Zip looks after his younger brother Newt, but also goes home to a grandmother handicapped by recent stroke, and a mother who spends all her time in a sleeping bag on the floor in her darkened room.

He earns most from the children's writing, although he says some of that is down to his scruples: 'I've turned things down, you know,' he says. His children's novels bob about on the surface of the prize jamborees: Krindlekrax won the Smarties prize, and Ridley is currently adapting it for the cinema Kaspar in the Glitter was nominated for the Whitbread Children's Award, while Scribbleboy was shortlisted for the Carnegie. He has the fluffiest eyebrows on an amazingly hairless face.Īpart from his screenplays and adult novels, he also writes for the theatre, paints, exhibits his photographs and writes poetry. But Ridley is baby-faced rather than East End tough-looking, despite being dressed in black from top to toe. He and his brother used to spend Saturday nights looking out of their window to see men 'glassing' each other on the way home from the pub on the corner. For example, he talks readily about the gap between him and his family, his parents' bemused sense of what it is their son does for a living, but there is a rawness that comes across when he describes it.īorn in December 1967, Ridley has lived all his life in the East End of London. Meeting Ridley in person, you get the strong sense from him too of feelings that are still being worked out. So, in Zip's Apollo, the newest Ridley, shopping trolleys can read human minds, although, like newborn babes, the trolleys have to make sense of the emotions around them. His stories have a futuristic edge, psychology masked by flashing lights, emotions for the techy generation.

Philip ridley scribbleboy