Jan Pienkowski was eight when he made his first book. “It was for my dad,” recalls the 73-year-old illustrator, who now has hundreds of books to his credit. From silhouettes that act out traditional fairy tales to innovative pop-up books, illustrating tales runs in Pienkowski’s veins. His celebrated Meg and Mog series was adapted into a play, starring Maureen Lipman, and became an animated television series with the voice of Alan Bennett. He has won the Kate Greenaway medal for illustration twice and this year was shortlisted for the Hans Christian Andersen Illustration Award.

I am met at the door of his home in Hammersmith, west London, by Pienkowski himself, whose clipped beard, long hair and two walking sticks (a temporary measure following a recent hip replacement) give him the air of a mysterious character from one of his tales. Inside, we sit among antique wooden furniture and share baked mackerel, homemade soda bread, salad and a lentil and onion stew, served with seaweed (given by Satoshi Kitamura, his friend and illustrator of the children’s series Angry Arthur), followed by chocolates and a brew of nettle tea. The talk is of travels, from train journeys in India to trips to the countries that feature in his otherworldly tales, such as Syria, Iran and Egypt. Once the teacups are empty we ascend a four-storey stairway – passing by the faded, ornate wallpaper he designed in the 1960s and framed, sepia photographs – to his studio in the attic.