ALBANY Wiseman and Robin Ollington are literally two old boys of St Albans School. Both now in their seventies, they met there as nine-year-olds during the war and their lifelong friendship and artistic collaboration has now brought them back to where it all began.

On Saturday they were giving a book signing in the abbey's crypt for St Alban's Day and the launch of their new book for children, Christopher of St Alban's Abbey.

Robin said: "Do you know, we've never had a cross word or a disagreement in 64 years.

"We met at the school in 1940 and we've known each other ever since. We worked together on and off and now we share a studio in Chelsea Albany is the godfather of my son."

Albany got his name through being born in St Albans and because his own godfather was called Alban. At the all boys' school they were kindred spirits "arty farty blokes," Robin terms it when other students were encouraged to do maths and science degrees.

Robin recalls: "I remember the headmaster called me in and asked what I wanted to do and I said I wanted to go to art school and he said 'Take him away, I can't do anything with him.'"

Both did go to art school Albany in London and Robin in Suffolk. Both were called up for national service, Albany serving in Suez and Cyprus, Robin in Northern Ireland. The experience that still brings them military commissions such as limited prints for the Royal Hospital or work for the National Army Museum.

Back in civvy street and with their art studies finished, Robin became an artist and designer, had a spell with an advertising agency and has been involved in art and publishing. Albany had a parallel career in illustration and is also a leading watercolour artist.

Over the years they've worked together on numerous assignments and now enjoy sharing a studio, Albany travelling there from his Bloomsbury home and Robin from south London.

It was on the train to work that Robin got the inspiration for their first "cathedral" book. Robin said: "There was an item in the newspaper about a fox that had got into St Paul's Cathedral and lived there a month, seen by tourists and all sorts of people, and I thought 'there's a children's story here'. So I rang up and said 'Can I have first refusal on your fox?' They were quite surprised."

But when he'd gone round St Paul's and mocked up a storyline about a fox who got bored in a suburban garden and caught a Thameslink train to St Paul's where his "awayday" became a trail taking children round the great cathedral and learning its history, they were impressed.

He worked by walking round the building, roughing out the story and possible pictures with a pencil, then fed bits of text across the studio to Albany to create the illustrations while he wrote more words and designed the final book.

The real fox, finally lured into captivity by a bacon sandwich near the altar, had been nicknamed Herod by cathedral officials, but Robin and Albany called theirs Wrenard - a play on the name of architect to St Paul's, Christopher Wren and the French word for fox, Renard.

The cathedral loved it but could not afford to print it so Robin and Albany published it themselves. They have now printed over 8,000 which have earned £15,000 for St Paul's and the book won the Museum Trading Association's first prize for a child's book connected to a venue.

Inspired by its success and with memories of their days as schoolboys in St Albans, they approached the Friends of the Abbey where Pam Martin jumped at the idea and the Friends have paid for the book's publication.

Robin said: "Because we both grew up in St Albans the abbey had been part of our lives and we both used to come in and draw it and we felt, in a way, it was giving something back, not just educationally but spiritually as well.

"Like with St Paul's, I walked round the abbey with my pad and worked out what a child would be interested in and did a pencil rough."

The title is Christopher of St Albans Cathedral and they used the titular little wooden figure which has hung in the south aisle over the collection box for 300 years to be the guide.

His name was chosen because, when they began work, the bishop, dean, sub-dean and chaplain all shared the name and for Christopher, patron saint of travellers.

Filled with Albany's pictures, it tells the story of the martyrdom of Alban through the enlargement to an abbey after the Norman conquest and Henry VIII's dissolution, to the restoration carried out by Lord Grimthorpe and the rebuilding of St Alban's shrine.

There is space in the book for children to design their own shrine and stained glass window and they can tick off features as they pass them from the wrestlers and lion on the watching loft to the bread cupboards where they kept fresh loaves for the poor.

When it was finished, Robin got his eight-year-old grandson, Alexander, to be the proof reader and he said other kids would enjoy it.

Now Robin hopes that their next children's book will be about Winchester Cathedral where a diver worked underground for four years to save the building from drowning.

Saturday was very special for both men when their new book was blessed by the Bishop, they signed lots of copies, and joined in the Abbey celebrations for St Alban's Day when pilgrims came from both St Albans in Washington and St Albans in Texas.

"It was strange coming back. I had to make a little speech and said when we arrived we had this Pavlovian reaction we were 10 again. It's strange to have gone full circle and come back," said Robin.

Christopher of St Alban's Cathedral by Robin Ollington illustrated by Albany Wiseman is on sale in the abbey bookshop price £4.99.