Abi Elphinstone: I found my own Narnia behind a blue door in Scotland

The creator of The Unmapped Chronicles found inspiration in the gorges and forest that lay beyond a stone wall near her home

No moment in literature has affected me like the moment eight-year-old Lucy Pevensie pushes through that wardrobe into Narnia. It showed me that one of the most essential ingredients of childhood is curiosity: Lucy may be the youngest and frequently overlooked but it is she who notices the wardrobe and in doing so finds her way through to a magical kingdom.

Childhood is full of doorways, most of them unseen, and at eight years old, you are starting to understand that the world is big and varied and full of wonder, and provided you don’t get side-tracked into growing up too soon, the possibilities are infinite. I remember a doorway from my own childhood, and I often wonder whether the reason I believed so wholeheartedly in Narnia was because the landscape beyond the blue door in the wilds of Scotland was every bit as magical.

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