Robert Westall

Introduction

Robert Westall

Robert Westall certainly knew how to multitask. At one point, after studying fine art at Durham University and sculpture at the Slade School of Art in London, he began teaching art in several schools in Northern England. At the same time he was teaching, he also worked as an antique dealer, a journalist, and the branch director of Samaritans. Finally, at the age of fifty-six, he retired to write full-time. His fiction for young adults focuses mostly on World War II, including The Machine Gunners, which is about a group of children in England trying to get a machine gun from a downed German plane. The book became instantly popular, winning the Carnegie Medal and spawning a BBC serial.

Essential Facts

1. In addition to World War II books, Westall also wrote ghost stories for young people and has been compared to British author M. R. James. Westall’s forte was combining several genres and themes.
2. Westall’s work inspired the Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, who published “A Trip to Tynemouth” in Japan. The story is based on Westall’s story “Blackham’s Wimpy.”
3. There is a Robert Westall walk in Tynemouth, England. The 2.5-mile walk goes through many of the places that inspired Westall’s work.
4. Besides his fiction, Westall wrote art criticism for The London Guardian and The Chester Chronicle.
5. Westall died in 1993 of pneumonia-related respiratory failure. He was sixty-three years old.