Robert Westall

Robert Atkinson Westall (October 7, 1929, North Shields – April 15, 1993, Lymm) is the author of many books, mostly fiction for children, 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" was adapted for BBC radio 4 in 2002. Is, in parts, particularly black and is, in this manner, entirely indistinguishable from an adult novel. His children's fiction includes "The Machine Gunners" (1975), set during the Second World War, where a group of children living in North Shields, England try to retrieve a machine gun from the turret of a felled German aircraft. It was his first novel for children, winning the Carnegie Medal; it was made into a BBC 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 Smarties prize in 1989 for "Blitzcat" and the Guardian Award 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, 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 novel "Futuretrack Five" is similarly compelling. Westall creates a dystopian future as cutting and insightful as Orwell's. The dystopia of "Futuretrack Five" however, while in places bleak, is more bittersweet 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, then Sculpture at the Slade School of Art in London, he became an art teacher in Northern schools, including Sir John Deane's Grammar School, (now Sir John Deane's College), while also working as a journalist, dealing in antiques and serving as a branch director of Samaritans. In 1985, he retired in order to concentrate on his writing.

At the time of his death, he lived on Woodland Drive in the village of Lymm in Cheshire.

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. Miyazaki based the story, first published in a collection called Break of Dark, on "Blackham's Wimpy." The rival RAF crews in the story fly Vickers Wellington bombers. The nickname comes from J. Wellington Wimpy in the Popeye cartoons.http://www.norham.n-tyneside.sch.uk/westall/index.htm

Bibliography

Fiction

*"Antique Dust"
*"The Devil on the Road" (1978)
*"Blitzcat" (1989)
*"Break of Dark"
*"The Cats of Seroster" (1984)
*"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"
*"The Machine-Gunners" (1975)
*"Old Man on a Horse"
*"The Promise"
*"Rachel and the Angel"
*"The Scarecrows"
*"Stormsearch"
*"Urn Burial"
*"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"