Judith Kerr was not scared to confront death in her stories. But she helped us savour the joy of life | Frank Cottrell Boyce

Mog the cat dies. The tiger came to tea - but never reappeared. The danger in her tales adds to their thrill If you've got a life that so many people don't have," said Judith Kerr, "then you don't waste it." She was talking about the fact that her parents managed to escape from Germany before the Nazis took over. That thought - what a stroke of luck it is to be alive - became her great theme. A few years ago - when she must have been in her late 80s - I watched her perform to a packed house in E...