WORK by a Giggleswick-born artist and writer is to be adapted into a children's television series.

Carol Lawson, a former pupil of Giggleswick Primary School and Settle Girls' High School, is the author and illustrator of a series of children's books titled The Upstairs Downstairs Bears.

The books have been adapted for a television series, to be seen on Children's ITV from on Monday April 9. Initially, 52 episodes have been made, introducing new storylines from the books.

Mrs Lawson's first story, The Upstairs Downstairs Bears on Holiday, was published by Egmont Children's Books in 1997, followed by The Upstairs Downstairs Bears at Christmas. The third book, The Upstairs Downstairs Bears and the Teddy Bear Hunt, was published last year.

The books are based around a family of bears who live in an Edwardian household at Theodore Square, a grand town-house in a city closely resembling London. The stories centre around the bears' everyday lives and adventures.

Mrs Lawson, 51, said: "The bears I feature in my books are based either on old friends in my own collection of some 100 or so teddy bears, or interesting characters that I see in books at bear fairs or teddy bear collector magazines.

"The films are done using 'stop frame' animation, which means that they use puppets, not drawings. This involves making real teddy bears."

Mrs Lawson trained at Harrogate College of Art and then studied art and design at Brighton University where she met her husband, illustrator Chris McEwan. For the last 18 years she has lived and worked in Newick, East Sussex, although she regularly returns to Giggleswick to see her mother Gladys Lawson and her brother Graeme, who lives in Langcliffe.

Her mother said: "Carol had her first work on television at the age of seven when she entered it onto an arts programme. She has lived for nothing else since - it's all been art."

She added that she bought her daughter her first teddy bear at the age of seven and from then on, her fascination grew.

Mrs Lawson's work has been commissioned for covers of The Radio Times, national newspapers and stores such as Marks and Spencers and Harrods. She has also written and illustrated a range of other children's books and ornaments.