A night out will go something like this. Josie Lloyd and Emlyn Rees will ask the babysitter to come to their house at 7.15pm. This gives them about a quarter of an hour to chat to her before they need to leave. "It's important to get the social bit in first," says Josie. "We might not be in a fit state to make conversation when we get back."
Even allowing for this 15-minute leeway, more often than not Josie and Emlyn will struggle to leave on time. Their three daughters aged 13, nine and six will usually find some way of holding them up, and there are bribes to be prepared, ranging from carrots – this is Brighton – to crisps, to make sure the girls behave for the babysitter. More often than not, Josie will still be putting on her makeup as they leave the house.
They then nip into a pub for a drink. Then to a different pub. Then on to the movies and a meal. Or vice versa. "Coming out of the cinema at about 11pm, we realise Brighton is no longer a town for us," says Emlyn. "We are extremely old and far too over-dressed."
"I start muttering, 'Why hasn't that girl got a coat on?" Josie laughs. "She'll catch her death of cold." They stay clear of bars – "We're not nearly cool enough and staff would give us withering looks if we went in" – and try to get home on time for the babysitter.
Sometimes they make it; often they don't. When they don't, they hand over far too much cash – "guilt money" – and hope the babysitter will agree to come again some time soon. After that it's stumble up to bed, hope the kids don't wake up and pray to God for something approaching a lie-in the following morning – 7am would be bliss.
Pretty much an average night out for most parents with young kids. And it was after one such night that Emlyn noticed a copy of We're Going on a Bear Hunt lying around. "We're Going on a Bar Hunt," he said, possibly slurring his words a little. "That's a great idea for a book," Josie replied, possibly a little the worse for wear herself.
It was one of those great ideas that still seemed great the morning after the night before. So Josie and Emlyn filed it away and then mentioned it to their editor. He, too, thought it was a good idea, commissioned Gillian Johnson to do the illustrations and the part parody, part homage, children's-book-for-adults-who-have-had-children took shape.
Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury's We're Going on a Bear Hunt became an instant favourite with kids and parents when it was first published in 1989 and has since become a classic. Countless other children's books have come and gone in between, but the appeal of Bear Hunt is timeless. Children just love it. Both my kids – now aged 21 and 18 – adored it, as did all three of Josie and Emlyn's. Some parents have even developed their own set of actions to accompany the text: Emlyn's involve tapping the book and jumping about. You rather have to be there.
The exact origins of Bear Hunt are imprecise. It's thought to be an old North American camp-fire song, but Rosen first heard of it through the Brownies and started using it in his one-man stage show. "David Lloyd of Walker Books saw the show and thought it would make a great book," he says. "I'd never previously thought of it as a book, but it seemed like a fun idea and he gave it to Helen to imagine. She really brought it to life."
It might have started in America, but Bear Hunt is a peculiarly British children's bedtime book. Partly because there aren't any bears in this country. "One of my sons never really enjoyed Bear Hunt," says Johnson, "and it's because my sister lives in Calgary, where there are lots of bears. Her house is full of information about what to do if you come across a bear. In the back of my son's mind, I think there's a part of him that wondered if the bear mightn't be real after all."
Bar Hunt is also a very British parody. Though for rather different reasons. "The few Americans we've shown it to have been a bit sniffy," Emlyn says. "They think it's a bit irresponsible to be going out partying when you've got young kids at home. And the Spanish just don't get it at all. They have said, 'Why on earth are the parents going out alone? Why aren't they taking the kids with them?''
It's certainly a parody that will draw a smile from any parent who has tried to hide Bear Hunt from their kids in the hope of introducing a little variation into the bedtime routines, only to be met with tears and a mini-tantrum. Going on holiday without Bear Hunt is a high-risk strategy. Above all, though, Josie and Emlyn hope Bar Hunt will draw a smile from Rosen and Oxenbury. "When we first started on the project, Michael was appearing at the Brighton festival and there were pictures of him up on almost every street corner," says Emlyn. "Every time we passed one, we'd say 'I hope he likes it,' so we sent an early version to Walker Books. We haven't heard back from Michael or Helen, but I've heard Michael has a good sense of humour, so I hope he sees it's written with love."
Bar Hunt is written with the same rhythms as the original – "We're going on a bar hunt. We're going to find a cool one. The babysitter's booked. We're not old!" – but with the gags on the parents and their occasional bids for freedom. "I still remember the first time we went out alone when our eldest was about six months old," Emlyn says. "My cousin caught us holding hands and skipping down the road together. He couldn't believe that we weren't more anguished at leaving our daughter behind. But we just felt elated to be out together. We had a real sense of joy and adventure." And did he end up with a traffic cone on his head like the character in the book? "I'd like it on record that it's been at least two decades since I had a road cone on my head."
For Josie and Emlyn, Bar Hunt was also a gentle return to working together. They met after they were both asked to contribute to an article about having their first books published and, over a drink in a pub (there's a theme developing here), Emlyn suggested they might collaborate on a novel. Josie sort of nodded. The following day, Emlyn almost got fired from his job and reckoned he needed a plan B. So he phoned Josie and said: "You remember that conversation we had last night?" and she said, "Not really," and they started out from there.
Come Together was published in 1999 and the couple went on to write six more novels together as well as producing three children. The collaboration fizzled out in 2007 after they felt the format had become a bit too constraining and artificial.
"It wasn't that it became difficult," says Josie, "as we always plotted out the storylines in advance together.
"The only big row came just after I had had our second daughter and I hadn't been paying enough attention to the narrative. We had to lose 40,000 words. That was a difficult conversation. We just wanted to work on our own books."
The couple have yet to decide whether to collaborate on other children's books. "It has to be one that resonates with people," says Emlyn. "That has a universality. And there aren't too many of those."
So how have their kids reacted to the book? Do they get the joke? "Our eldest does," says Josie. "But it leaves the other two blank. Then, it's always hard to tell what kids are taking in and what they aren't. I thought I had been a brilliant mum and had told my daughter everything she needed to know about sex education, but then I came into the kitchen and overheard her asking Emlyn, 'When dogs have babies, do they lay eggs?'
"I immediately weighed in with, 'No they don't. Haven't you read the book I gave you? There's the sperm and the egg.' And my daughter goes, 'Yeah, yeah' before saying, 'What about elephants?' so I said, 'It's just the same. The mummy elephant swishes aside her tail and then the Daddy …
"It was the word swish that upset her," Emlyn says. "That and making the humping motions."
"My daughter ran off up the stairs crying," Josie continues, "while Emlyn said, 'I think that went tremendously well.' I was so determined not to get it wrong with my second daughter that I spelled it out clinically to her. She said, 'Why are you telling me this? I'm only eight.'
"So you can never get it right."
Five more children's classics reimagined
1. The Very Hungry Parasite
In which your child turns from an adorably cute baby into a fridge-raiding, grumpy, ungrateful adolescent.
2. How Much Do You Owe Me?
In which a father quite reasonably reminds his teenager that he is still waiting to be paid back the £10 she borrowed to go out the previous weekend, only to be told that she had to buy "someone" a present, her Oyster card went missing and she needed a new pair of shoes and that the father actually owes her another £25.
3. The Twat in the Hat
In which your partner persuades you that it would be a great idea to have a fancy dress party while the kids are away on a sleepover. You stupidly agree, and the house gets completely trashed. Your partner promises to tidy up but passes out and the kids arrive home to find both you and their home wrecked.
4. The Quail and the Whale
In which a young quail, curious to see more of the world, hitches a lift on the back of a friendly whale. The whale takes him to all corners of the world before getting beached. The quail then remembers what his parents had told him about stranger danger and lets the whale die instead of rescuing him.
5. Where the Mild Things Are
In which a couple get fed up with being told how stupid they are by their kids and retreat to their bedroom, which mysteriously turns into a tranquil 1950s world where children are dressed as Enid Blyton characters and only speak when spoken to. The parents come out of their bedroom an hour later to find their children bickering with one another.
