Robert Westall

Early life and career

Robert Westall was born 7 October 1929 in North Shields, Northumberland. He grew up there on Tyneside during the Second World War. Wartime Tyneside is the setting for many of his novels, for which his own life was a great source and inspiration. He earned a Bachelor's degree in Fine Art at Durham University and a post-graduate degree studying Sculpture at the Slade School of Art in London in 1957. From 1953 until 1955, Westall served in the British Army as a Lance Corporal in the Royal Corps of Signals. He subsequently became a teacher, including holding the positions of Head of Art and Head of Careers at Sir John Deane's Grammar School in Northwich, Cheshire. Westall served as a branch director of Samaritans between 1966 and 1975 and also contributed as a journalist to publications such as Cheshire Life and The Cheshire Chronicle and to The Guardian as an art critic.

Writing

Westall was inspired to become a writer by telling his son Christopher stories about his experiences during the Second World War. His first book, The Machine Gunners, published by Macmillan in 1975, told a Second World War story about English children who find "a crashed German bomber in the woods complete with machine gun". It was adapted as a BBC television serial in 1983.

Machine Gunners was set in Garmouth, a fictionalised Tynemouth, where he returned in other novels including The Watch House (1977) and Fathom Five (1979), which continues the Machine Gunners story.

Christopher Westall was killed in a motorbike accident at the age of 18 in 1978 and became the inspiration for The Devil on the Road (1978), commended for the Carnegie Medal, and for a short story in The Haunting of Chas McGill (1983).

Westall won a second Carnegie Medal for The Scarecrows (Chatto & Windus, 1981). No one has won three, yet he was not a full-time writer. He retired from teaching only in 1985, and tried dealing antiques before focusing exclusively on his writing. For Blitzcat (Bodley Head, 1989) he won the annual Smarties Prize in category 9–11 years. In 1994 the American Library Association named it one of the hundred Best Books for Young Adults of the Last 25 years. He finally won the once-in-a-lifetime Guardian Children's Fiction Prize for The Kingdom by the Sea (Methuen, 1990). Both that work and Gulf (1992) were highly commended runners-up for the Carnegie Medal. The latter is a story about the home front during the Persian Gulf War.

From 1988 until his death Westall attended a writers' circle in Lymm where he enjoyed assisting and mentoring new writers.

Death

Westall died on 15 April 1993 in Warrington Hospital of respiratory failure as a result of pneumonia. At the time of his death, he lived in lodgings with his landlady, Lindy McKinnel, at 1 Woodland Avenue in the village of Lymm. He had his own cottage a few paces away, where each day he left his home to write; Robert liked the feeling of going to work of a morning. Previously he had lived at 20 Winnington Lane, Northwich, and had run Magpie Antiques, Church Street, Davenham. As a journalist, he wrote for Cheshire Life, the Northwich Chronicle and the Warrington Guardian. A memorial service was held on 29 September 1993, at nearby All Saints' Church, Thelwall, Warrington. Tributes were paid by former teaching colleagues and Miriam Hodgson, editorial director (fiction) Reed Children's Books.

A blue plaque was placed on Westall's birthplace, 7 Vicarage Street, North Shields, the following year. There is also a Westall Walk, which takes fans around locations used by the world-famous children's writer in his stories.

Westall's work has caught the imagination of the Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. In October 2006 A Trip to Tynemouth by Miyazaki was published in Japan. It is based on "Blackham's Wimpy", a story first published in Westall's collection Break of Dark. The rival RAF crews in the story fly Vickers Wellington bombers. The nickname comes from J. Wellington Wimpy in the Popeye cartoons.

Works

According to WorldCat, participating libraries hold editions of Westall's books in 17 foreign languages.

Non-fiction

Autobiographical

Radio

Television

Awards and honours

American Library Association 100 Best Books for Young Adults of the Last 25 years

American Library Association Best Fiction for Young Adults

Boston Globe–Horn Book Award runners-up

Carnegie Medal

Dracula Society Children of the Night Award

Guardian Children's Fiction Prize

Nestlé Smarties Book Prize, ages category 9–11 years

Sheffield Children's Book Award

Papers

Robert Westall's papers, deposited between 2003 and 2010, are at Seven Stories, National Centre for Children's Books.