The stories of Babar are embedded in many an oldie’s childhood memory.

But it wasn’t until Laurent de Brunhoff died this March, aged 98 (his father, Jean, the Babar creator, died from TB in 1937, aged only 37), that I realised how little I knew about Babar’s creators.

At the time, my youngest daughter and I were downsizing from a threestorey house to a two-bedroom flat. I’d had to rid myself of most of my books -a painful process which I’ve written about in these pages.

I’d sold some paintings and distributed the rest amongst friends.

Yet one artwork, a poster of Babar, survived the savage cull, along with a couple Babar books and a cuddly Babar, from whom my daughter (now 20) had never been parted.