Meet the real Lizzie Lugs
#Bess Goes to the Beach
# Discovering New Characters
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Meet the Real Lizzie Lugs
If you’ve already met the real Bess, then I think it’s time you met another very important member of the Bess of Clara Vale family.
Meet Lizzie Lugs.
Readers first meet Lizzie in Bess Goes to the Beach, where she becomes one of Bess’s new friends. And, just like Bess herself, Lizzie wasn’t dreamed up entirely from my imagination. There is a very real German Shepherd behind those rather magnificent ears.
And yes .... the Lugs are real.
They flap in the wind, wobble when she runs and somehow manage to develop a personality entirely of their own. There really couldn’t have been another name for her.
The Real Lizzie
We were incredibly lucky to have Lizzie come into our lives after she was returned, while still young, to our friends and her breeders at Anchaz German Shepherds.
Sometimes a dog simply finds the home where she was always meant to be, and Lizzie very quickly became part of ours. She has been our bright light ever since.
She is funny, affectionate, adventurous and enormously expressive. She loves being outside, but the beach is very definitely one of her favourite places. Give Lizzie sand, sea, something to chase and plenty of room to run and she is completely in her element.
Most of the photographs on this page probably tell you more about her than I ever could.
Lizzie and Bess
One of the things I particularly love about bringing Lizzie into the books is that the friendship has a little bit of truth behind it too.
The real Lizzie actually does have a black Labrador friend.
Her name is Cassie, and she belongs to our friend Cristina. Watching the two of them together helped inspire something that matters to me in Bess Goes to the Beach: friendship doesn’t have to mean doing everything in exactly the same way.
Bess and Lizzie can share the same space, explore, play and enjoy the beach while still being completely themselves. That feels very fitting for the world of Bess.
From Real Dog To Illustrated Character
When I began drawing Lizzie for Bess Goes to the Beach, I didn’t want to create a generic German Shepherd and simply give her Lizzie’s name.
I wanted children who know the real Lizzie to be able to look at the page and say, “That’s her.” So the long legs stayed. The black-and-tan coat stayed. Her alert expression stayed. And, of course, those slightly wayward ears absolutely had to stay.
They are far too important to edit out.
That is one of my favourite parts of creating the Bess of Clara Vale books. Little pieces of real life find their way onto the page: dogs we know, places we walk, things that make us laugh and friendships that matter to us.
They become part of Bess’s world, but there is still a little piece of the real story underneath.
So, if you’ve met Lizzie Lugs in Bess Goes to the Beach, now you’ve met the girl who inspired her too.
And if you ever see a German Shepherd racing along a North East beach with two enormous ears flapping in the wind…there is a reasonable chance it might be Lizzie.
