All Because of Jackson

Dick King-Smith (1922-2011) served in the Grenadier Guards during the Second World War, and afterwards spent twenty years as a farmer in Gloucestershire, the county of his birth. Many of his stories are inspired by his farming experiences. Later he taught at a village primary school. His first book, The Fox Busters, was published in 1978. He went onto write a great many more children's books, including The Sheep-Pig (winner of the Guardian Award and filmed as Babe), Harry's Mad, Noah's Brother, The Hodgeheg, Martin's Mice, Ace, The Cuckoo Child and Harriet's Hare (winner of the Children's Book Award in 1995). At the British Book Awards in 1991 he was voted Children's Author of the Year. In 2009 he was made OBE for services to children's literature. Dick King-Smith died in 2011 at the age of eighty-eight.

Sophie Thompson was born in 1962 in London, England. She is an actress, known for EastEnders (1985), Emma (1996) and Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994). She has been married to Richard Lumsden since 1995. They have two children. Sophie Thompson is an award-winning actor of stage and screen as well as a children’s author. She played Mafalda Hopkirk in the Harry Potter franchise.