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Sir Michael Andrew Bridge Morpurgo OBE FRSL FKC DL (né Bridge; 5 October 1943)[1] is an English book author, poet, playwright, and librettist who is known best for children's novels such as War Horse (1982). His work is noted for its "magical storytelling",[2] for recurring themes such as the triumph of an outsider or survival, for characters' relationships with nature, and for vivid settings such as the Cornish coast or World War I. Morpurgo became the third Children's Laureate, from 2003 to 2005, [3] and he is also the current President of Book Trust, the UK's largest children's reading charity.

Early life

Morpurgo was born in 1943 in St Albans, Hertfordshire, as Michael Andrew Bridge, the second child of actor Tony Van Bridge and actress Kippe Cammaerts (born Catherine Noel Kippe Cammaerts, daughter of writer and poet Émile Cammaerts).[5] Both RADA graduates, his parents had met when they were acting in the same repertory company in 1938.[6] His father came from a working-class family, while Kippe came from a family of actors, an opera singer, writers and poets.[6] They were married in 1941 while Van Bridge, having been called up in 1939 and by then stationed in Scotland, was on leave from the army.[6] Morpurgo's brother Pieter was born in 1942. When Morpurgo was born the following year, his father was stationed in Baghdad.[1] While Van Bridge was away at war, Kippe Cammaerts met Jack Morpurgo (subsequently professor of American Literature at the University of Leeds from 1969 to 1982[7]). When Van Bridge returned to England in 1946, he and Cammaerts obtained a divorce and Cammaerts married Jack Morpurgo the same year. Although they were not formally adopted, Morpurgo and his brother took on their step-father's name.[8][9] Morpurgo's older brother, Pieter Morpurgo,[1] later became a BBC television producer and director.[10] He has two younger siblings, Mark and Kay.[9] Morpurgo's mother was frail, having suffered a breakdown when she was 19, and grieving the loss of her brother Pieter, who was killed in the war in 1941, for the rest of her life.[6] Towards the end of her life she was an alcoholic.

Morpurgo and his brother were evacuated to Northumberland when they were very young.[1] After returning to London, the family lived in Philbeach Gardens, Earl's Court, where the children played on nearby bombsites.[12][13] Morpurgo went to primary school at St Matthias, Earl's Court. The family later moved to Bradwell-on-Sea in Essex, where Morpurgo would live during the school holidays,[14] having been sent to boarding school in Sussex when he was seven years old. The school was very strict and the boys were beaten frequently. During this period Morpurgo developed a stutter.[11] His unhappy experiences at boarding school would later inform his novel The Butterfly Lion.[8] After six years at The Abbey school in Ashurst Wood,[1] Morpurgo then went to the King's School, an independent school in Canterbury, Kent, where he felt less homesick than at his previous school.

Morpurgo did not learn who his biological father was until he was 19 years old.[15] After the divorce from Michael's mother, Van Bridge had emigrated to Canada and was never talked about. Morpurgo never saw an image of his father until, while watching the 1962 CBC version of Great Expectations on TV with his mother, she recognised Van Bridge in the role of Magwitch and said to Michael "That's your father!".[16] They met in person nine years later.

Morpurgo's stepfather was not encouraging to his sons and was disappointed that they were not meeting his expectations for them of going into academia like him, calling Michael "a bear with very little brain."[11][17] His stepfather decided he should join the army and Morpurgo attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.[15] He quickly realised that a soldier's life was not for him and left after nine months.

Morpurgo later went to study at King's College London, reading English, French, and Philosophy,[19] and graduated with a third class degree.[20] He then joined the teaching profession[15] with a job at Wickhambreaux Primary School in Canterbury, Kent.[21] He also, in 1968, briefly taught at St. Faith's School in Cambridge.

Personal life

Aged 19, Morpurgo married Clare Lane, eldest daughter of Sir Allen Lane, the founder of Penguin Books, in 1963.[23][24] They had met the previous year on holiday in Corfu through Morpurgo's stepfather, who was an editor at Penguin at the time.[25] Lane was pregnant with their first child and Morpurgo has referred to it as a shotgun wedding.[24] Their three children, Sebastian, Horatio and Rosalind, are all named after Shakespearian characters.

Morpurgo was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer in 2017 and received radiotherapy.[26] He has since recovered.

Farms for City Children

Main article: Farms for City Children

In 1976, Morpurgo and his wife Clare established the charity Farms for City Children,[27] with the primary aim of providing children from inner city areas with experience of the countryside.[28] The programme involves the children spending a week at a countryside farm, during which they take part in purposeful farmyard work.[29][17] The charity's first president was the couple's close friend and neighbour, Ted Hughes.

About 85,000 children have taken part in the scheme since it was set up, and the charity now has three farms in Wales, Devon, and Gloucestershire. Morpurgo has referred to the charity as his greatest achievement in life.

Career

From teaching to writing novels

It was not until he was teaching in Kent that Morpurgo discovered his vocation in life, of which he later said "I could see there was magic in it for them, and realized there was magic in it for me."

Morpurgo's writing career was inspired by Ted Hughes' Poetry in the Making, Paul Gallico's The Snow Goose and Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea.[2] Hughes and another poet, Seán Rafferty, were influential in his career, with Hughes becoming a friend, mentor and neighbour. Morpurgo credits Hughes and Rafferty with giving him the confidence to write War Horse, his most successful work to date.

Courtesy – Wikipedia
- Michael Morpurgo

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