Hazel Townson was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 children's-literature

Children's literature

Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...

 author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

. She had over fifty books published from 1975 onwards, including in countries such as the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

, Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 and Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

.

Career

Hazel Townson began her writing career with Punch

Punch (magazine)

Punch, or the London Charivari was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 50s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration...

 magazine, for which she was a regular contributor for many years. The magazine invited her to write reviews of children's books, which would eventually lead to her writing her own material.

She also worked as Chief Assistant Librarian for part of Greater Manchester

Greater Manchester

Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 2.6 million. It encompasses one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United Kingdom and comprises ten metropolitan boroughs: Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan, and the...

, a role that included responsibility for libraries in 110 schools, eleven public children's libraries, and four colleges.

Her first book, entitled Looking for Lossie, was published in 1975.

As of 1998, Townson published books totalled 55. These ranged from picture book

Picture book

A picture book combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format, most often aimed at young children. The images in picture books use a range of media such as oil paints, acrylics, watercolor and pencil.Two of the earliest books with something like the format picture books still retain now...

s to teenage novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

s.

Some of Townson's books, such as The Speckled Panic and Terrible Tuesday, have been adapted for television. She also had stories commissioned for Granada Television

Granada Television

Granada Television is the ITV contractor for North West England. Based in Manchester since its inception, it is the only surviving original ITA franchisee from 1954 and is ITV's most successful....

's Time for a Story, Tickle on the Tum and Story World programmes.

She frequently visited schools, libraries, colleges and writers' groups to talk about children's literature and to assist with creative writing.

Following its formation in 1985, Townson chaired the panel for the annual "Lancashire Children's Book of the Year" award.

Richard Branson

Richard Branson

Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson is an English business magnate, best known for his Virgin Group of more than 400 companies....

 printed 500,000 copies of Townson's Adventures of a Lottery Winner to give away to youngsters on his Virgin Atlantic airline.

Personal life

Born in Nelson, Lancashire

Nelson, Lancashire

Nelson is a town and civil parish in the Borough of Pendle in Lancashire, England, with a population of 28,998 in 2001. It lies 4 miles north of Burnley on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal....

, Townson was brought up in the Pendle

Pendle

Pendle is a local government district and borough of Lancashire, England. It adjoins the Lancashire boroughs of Burnley and Ribble Valley, the North Yorkshire district of Craven and the West Yorkshire districts of Calderdale and the City of Bradford...

 valley. She attended Accrington

Accrington

Accrington is a town in Lancashire, within the borough of Hyndburn. It lies about east of Blackburn, west of Burnley, north of Manchester city centre and is situated on the mostly culverted River Hyndburn...

 High School and then studied English at the University of Leeds

University of Leeds

The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...

.

She was a widow to Kenneth Smith; mother to Christopher and Catherine; grandmother to John, Vickie, Max and Clea; and great-grandmother to Leon.

Townson died on 11 October 2010, surrounded by family, after a long battle with Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...

.

The Lenny and Jake series

• The Great Ice-Cream Crime (1981)
• The Siege of Cobb Street School (1983)
• The Vanishing Gran (1983)
• Haunted Ivy (1984)
• The Crimson Crescent (1986)
• The Staggering Snowman (1987)
• Fireworks Galore! (1988)
• Walnut Whirl (1989)
• Hopping Mad (1991)
• The Kidnap Report (1992)
• A Night on Smugglers' Island (1993)
• The Sign of the Crab (1994)
• Cats and Burglars (1995)
• The Clue of the Missing Cufflink (1996)
• Trouble on the Train (1997)

Tiger Young Readers' Series

• Through the Witch's Window (1989)
• Amos Shrike, the School Ghost (1990)
• Snakes Alive (1991)
• Blue Magic (1992)

The Speckled Panic Series

• The Speckled Panic (1982)
• The Choking Peril (1985)
• Hot Stuff (1991)
• The One-Day Millionaires (1995)
• Coughdrop Calamity (1995)

Other titles

• Pilkie's Progress (1988)
• Who's Afraid of the Evil Eye (1994)
• The Moving Statue
• The Deathwood Letters (2003)
• The Secret of Celia
• Two Weird Weeks (2003)
• Disaster Bag
• Rumpus on the Roof
• Trouble Doubled
• The Peckthorn Monster
• The Shrieking Face
• Your Dad, My Mum (2001)
• Ignorance is Bliss (2001)
• Invisible Boy (2002)
• Diamond Hunt (2003)
• The Adventures of a Lottery Winner (2004)
• Shots in the Dark (2004)
• The Secret Room (2004)
• Danny - Don't Jump (2005)
• Snakes Alive! and Other Stories (2005)
• Dark Deeds at Deathwood: Deathwood Letters 2 (2006)
• Vanishing Village (2007)
• Deathwood Damian Strikes Again (2008)

Gary Who