Robert Atkinson Westall (7 October 1929, North Shields

North Shields

North Shields is a town on the north bank of the River Tyne, in the metropolitan borough of North Tyneside, in North East England...

 – 15 April 1993, Warrington

Warrington

Warrington is a town, borough and unitary authority area of Cheshire, England. It stands on the banks of the River Mersey, which is tidal to the west of the weir at Howley. It lies 16 miles east of Liverpool, 19 miles west of Manchester and 8 miles south of St Helens...

 hospital) was the author of many books, mostly children's fiction, though also for adults, and non-fiction. Many of his novels, while supposedly aimed at a teenage audience, deal with many complex, dark and in many ways adult themes. Westall's novel The Wheatstone Pond, adapted for BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

 in 2002, is particularly black in parts and is, in this manner, entirely indistinguishable from an adult novel. Other radio adaptions for Radio 4 include The Stones of Muncaster Cathedral and Yaxley's Cat. His children's fiction includes The Machine Gunners

The Machine Gunners

The Machine Gunners is a children's historical novel by Robert Westall published in 1975. It was awarded the Carnegie Medal for that year, and in 2007 was selected by judges of the Carnegie Medal as one of the ten most important children's novels of the past 70 years...

(1975), set during the Second World War, where a group of children living in North Shields, England

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...

 try to retrieve a machine gun from the turret of a fallen German aircraft. It was his first novel for children, winning the Carnegie Medal

Carnegie Medal

The Carnegie Medal is a literary award established in 1936 in honour of Scottish philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and given annually to an outstanding book for children and young adults. It is awarded by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals...

; it was made into a BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 television serial in 1983. In its sequel, Fathom Five (1979), many of the same characters believe there to be a German spy in their home town of Garmouth. He won the Carnegie Medal again in 1982 for The Scarecrows

The Scarecrows

The Scarecrows is a children's novel by Robert Westall, published in 1981. The novel was awarded the Carnegie Medal for 1981, the second Carnegie award for Robert Westall...

, the Smarties prize

Nestlé Smarties Book Prize

The Nestlé Children's Book Prize, also known as the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize, was an annual award given to children's books written in the previous year by a UK citizen or resident. The prize was administered by Booktrust, an independent charity which promotes books and reading, and sponsored by...

 in 1989 for Blitzcat and the Guardian Award

Guardian Award

The Guardian Children's Fiction Prize or Guardian Award is a prominent award for works of children's literature by British or Commonwealth authors, published in the United Kingdom during the preceding year. The award has been given annually since 1967, and is decided by a panel of authors and the...

 in 1991 for The Kingdom by the Sea.

Westall's work can be roughly divided between the World War II tale, "school stories" and tales of the supernatural. Indeed, many think that his ghost stories are the finest since M. R. James

M. R. James

Montague Rhodes James, OM, MA, , who used the publication name M. R. James, was an English mediaeval scholar and provost of King's College, Cambridge and of Eton College . He is best remembered for his ghost stories, which are regarded as among the best in the genre...

, but Westall was especially adept at combining genres and merged all three themes effortlessly. His characters of any age are often blessed with strength of will and purpose that is the ultimate hallmark of his stories. While Westall's novels, for the most part, touch upon the supernatural, they tend to avoid the realms of fantasy. The fantastic, when used by Westall, is a device used within a story rather than the sole purpose of a story. The Devil on the Road is a particularly good example of Westall's sophistication and subtlety when dealing with the supernatural and of his ability to tell a story which is both contemplative and entirely gripping. The science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 novel Futuretrack Five is similarly compelling. Westall creates a dystopian future as cutting and insightful as Orwell's. The dystopia

Dystopia

A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...

 of Futuretrack Five however, while in places bleak, is more bitter-sweet than despairing.

Robert Westall was born in North Shields, in 1929, and 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. After studying Fine Art at Durham University

Durham University

The University of Durham, commonly known as Durham University, is a university in Durham, England. It was founded by Act of Parliament in 1832 and granted a Royal Charter in 1837...

, then Sculpture at the Slade School of Art in London, he became an art teacher in a number of schools, including Sir John Deane's Grammar School, (now Sir John Deane's College

Sir John Deane's College

Sir John Deane's College is a sixth form college in Northwich, Cheshire, UK. It was formerly Sir John Deane's Grammar School, which was founded in 1557.-History:...

), while also working as a journalist, dealing in antiques and serving as a branch director of Samaritans

Samaritans (charity)

Samaritans is a registered charity aimed at providing emotional support to anyone in emotional distress or at risk of suicide throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland, often through their telephone helpline. The name comes from the Biblical parable of the Good Samaritan, though the organisation...

. In 1985, he retired in order to concentrate on his writing. Robert Westall's inspiration to become a writer was due to finding an unfinished manuscript of a book of his son's, his son unfortunately was killed in a motorbike accident at the age of 17 and Robert Westall had no idea of his son's aspiration to be a writer. From 1988 until his death he attended a writers circle in Lymm where he enjoyed assisting and mentoring new writers, one of the writing titles that was set by one of the students, Jonathan Welford, this was 'Nightmare', this was to be his last book titled Night Mare, published after his death.

At the time of his death, he lived in lodgings with his landlady Lindy McKinnel at 1 Woodland Avenue in the village of Lymm

Lymm

Lymm is a large village and civil parish within the Warrington borough of Cheshire, in North West England. Lymm was an urban district of Cheshire from 1894 to 1974. The civil parish of Lymm incorporates the hamlets of Booths Hill, Broomedge, Church Green, Deansgreen, Heatley, Heatley Heath, Little...

 and 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 September 29, 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, on Tyneside, 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.

An interesting profile can be found at Bookenginehttp://bookengine.blogspot.com, a blog about children's writers and children's fiction.

Westall's work has caught the imagination of the Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki

is a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli,...

. In October 2006 A Trip to Tynemouth by Miyazaki was published in Japan. Miyazaki based the story on, "Blackham's Wimpy", first published in Westall's short story collection Break of Dark. The rival RAF crews in the story fly Vickers Wellington

Vickers Wellington

The Vickers Wellington was a British twin-engine, long range medium bomber designed in the mid-1930s at Brooklands in Weybridge, Surrey, by Vickers-Armstrongs' Chief Designer, R. K. Pierson. It was widely used as a night bomber in the early years of the Second World War, before being displaced as a...

 bombers. The nickname comes from J. Wellington Wimpy

J. Wellington Wimpy

J. Wellington Wimpy, generally referred to as Wimpy, is one of the characters in the long-running comic strip Popeye, created by E. C. Segar and originally called Thimble Theatre, and in the Popeye cartoons based upon the strip...

 in the Popeye cartoons.

Anthologies

• Cat's Whispers and Tales
• Ghost Stories
• The Best of Robert Westall Volume One: Demons and Shadows
• The Best of Robert Westall Volume Two: Shades of Darkness

Fiction

• The Devil on the Road (1978)
• Blizzard
• Blitzcat (1989)
• Break of Dark
• The Cats of Seroster (1984)
• Christmas Spirit
• The Creature in the Dark
• Fathom Five
• Fearful Lovers
• Futuretrack Five (1983)
• Ghost Abbey
• Ghosts and Journeys
• The Haunting of Chas McGill
• The Kingdom by the Sea (1990)
• Love Match
• The Machine Gunners
  The Machine Gunners
  The Machine Gunners is a children's historical novel by Robert Westall published in 1975. It was awarded the Carnegie Medal for that year, and in 2007 was selected by judges of the Carnegie Medal as one of the ten most important children's novels of the past 70 years...
  
  (1975)
• Old Man on a Horse
• The Promise
• Rachel and the Angel
• The Scarecrows
• Stormsearch
• Urn Burial
  Urn Burial (novel)
  Urn Burial is a 1987 young adult science fiction novel by Robert Westall. It involves alien races who resemble cats and dogs.-Overview:In a small village in northern England, Ralph, a young shepherd, discovers a weird pile of stones. By digging into the stones, he discovers a strange "sleeping"...
  
  
• Voices in the Wind
• A Walk on the Wild Side
• The Watch House
• The Wind Eye
• Yaxley's Cat (1991)
• The Call and Other Stories
• Echoes of War
• If Cats Could Fly
• The Witness
• The Stones of Muncaster Cathedral
• A Place For Me
• A Time of Fire
• The Christmas Cat
• The Christmas Ghost
• Gulf
• Size Twelve
• The Wheatstone Pond
• Falling Into Glory
• Blitz
• The Night Mare

Non-fiction

• Children of the Blitz
• Harvest