High Rhulain

Brian Jacques (pronounced “Jakes”) was born into a Liverpool Irish family on the eve of World War Two and grew up close to the docks. He began reading at an early age and was especially keen on adventure stories by writers such as Daniel Defoe, Sir Henry Rider Haggard, Robert Louis Stevenson and Edgar Rice Burroughs. After leaving school aged fifteen, Brian set out to find real-life adventure as a merchant seaman. He travelled to many exotic places; from New York to Valparaiso to Yokohama. It was an exciting time but the life of the sailor proved lonely and he decided to return home to Liverpool. Brian wrote his first book, Redwall, for the children at the Royal Wavertree School for the Blind. He first came into contact with the children through delivering milk to the school. He started reading books to them but saw that the stories were not sufficiently firing the kids’ imaginations. He decided to try a story of his own. “I didn’t have a typewriter and I was skint, so I went and bought dozens of 30p pads and sat up all night.” Brian was signed up on the spot for the first five Redwall adventures. The series has proved phenomenally successful throughout the world. There are over seven million copies of the 14 Redwall books in print. They are published in 19 countries and 16 languages. Brian died in 2011. He had two grown sons: Marc, a builder, carpenter and bricklayer, and David, a professor of Art and a muralist. Brian wrote Mariel of Redwall in honour of his granddaughter Jade and dedicated The Great Redwall Feast to her.

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