Alison Prince (26 March 1931 – 12 October 2019) was a British

children's writer Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. Modern children's literature is classified in two different ways: genre or the intended age of the reader. Children's ...

, screenwriter and biographer, who settled on the

Isle of Arran The Isle of Arran (; sco, Isle o Arran; gd, Eilean Arainn) or simply Arran is an island off the west coast of Scotland. It is the largest island in the Firth of Clyde and the seventh-largest Scottish island, at . Historically part of Buteshi ...

in Scotland. Her novels for young people won several awards. She was the scriptwriter of the much repeated children's television series '' Trumpton''.

Background

Prince was born on 26 March 1931 in

Beckenham, Kent Beckenham () is a town in Greater London, England, within the London Borough of Bromley, in Greater London. Until 1965 it was part of the historic county of Kent. It is located south-east of Charing Cross, situated north of Elmers End and E ...

(now in Greater London) to Louise (née David) and Charles Prince. Her mother trained as a nurse and was later Mayor of

Bromley Bromley is a large town in Greater London, England, within the London Borough of Bromley. It is south-east of Charing Cross, and had an estimated population of 87,889 as of 2011. Originally part of Kent, Bromley became a market town, c ...

while her father was manager of the Yorkshire Bank in London. She grew up in South London and attended a girls' grammar school where she enjoyed grammar and Latin, but not maths. Her parents were from Scotland and Yorkshire. Her father was a keen pianist, and she played the clarinet. As a child she visited Scottish relatives in

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popu ...

. After completing a degree course at the

Slade School of Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

, where she had won a scholarship, Prince found work in casual, low-paid jobs unrelated to art. She later took a postgraduate teaching diploma at

Goldsmiths College Goldsmiths, University of London, officially the Goldsmiths' College, is a constituent research university of the University of London in England. It was originally founded in 1891 as The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by the ...

, then taught art at the Elliott Comprehensive School, in Putney. She married a fellow teacher, Goronwy Parry, and together they had three children. With this interruption to her teaching career, she turned instead to occasional journalism. After the marriage ended, she ran a small farm in

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include ...

for eight years.

From television to books

Prince later moved into writing for children's television, gaining notice with her scripts for the

stop motion Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames i ...

animated puppet series '' Trumpton'' (1967) for young children produced by Gordon Murray. Prince also wrote the lyrics for the songs performed by Brian Cant. "I didn’t have a television, but I had three kids to feed, so I said yes," she recalled in 2006. Her first book was ''Joe and a Horse and other stories about Joe from 'Watch with Mother'', with Joan Hickson, a 1968 spin-off from the BBC pre-school program '' Watch with Mother''. In the late 1970s, she turned to writing books for children, some based on historical characters. They include '' My Royal Story'' about

Catherine of Aragon Catherine of Aragon (also spelt as Katherine, ; 16 December 1485 – 7 January 1536) was Queen of England as the first wife of King Henry VIII from their marriage on 11 June 1509 until their annulment on 23 May 1533. She was previously ...

, which was re-released in 2010. ''How's Business'' (1987), set in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, made the shortlist for the Nestle Smarties Book Prize. ''The Sherwood Hero'' (1995) is a modern-day

Robin Hood Robin Hood is a legendary heroic outlaw originally depicted in English folklore and subsequently featured in literature and film. According to legend, he was a highly skilled archer and swordsman. In some versions of the legend, he is dep ...

story for young adults, about a girl stealing a credit card from her father's client, drawing £100, attempting to hand it out to the poor in the streets of

, and then coping with the guilt. For this Prince was a joint winner (with

Philip Pullman Sir Philip Nicholas Outram Pullman (born 19 October 1946) is an English writer. His books include the fantasy trilogy '' His Dark Materials'' and '' The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ'', a fictionalised biography of Jesus. In 2008, ''T ...

) of the ''Guardian'' Children's Fiction Prize, a once-in-a-lifetime book award judged by a panel of British children's writers. Her thriller ''Oranges and Murder'' was the

Scottish Arts Council The Scottish Arts Council ( gd, Comhairle Ealain na h-Alba, sco, Scots Airts Cooncil) was a Scottish public body responsible for the funding, development and promotion of the arts in Scotland. The Council primarily distributed funding from th ...

Children's Book of the Year in 2002. Translations of her books have been published in several languages, including Danish, German, Japanese and Welsh. Mainly for adults, Prince wrote well-received biographies of

Kenneth Grahame Kenneth Grahame ( ; 8 March 1859 – 6 July 1932) was a British writer born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He is most famous for '' The Wind in the Willows'' (1908), a classic of children's literature, as well as '' The Reluctant Dragon''. Both books ...

(1994, reissued 2009) and

Hans Christian Andersen Hans Christian Andersen ( , ; 2 April 1805 – 4 August 1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his literary fairy tales. Andersen's fairy tales, consist ...

(1998), a collection of essays on formative thinking, two booklets of poetry, and two volumes of pieces that had originally appeared in a local Arran newspaper. In 2005, Prince received an honorary doctorate of letters from the

University of Leicester , mottoeng = So that they may have life , established = , type = public research university , endowment = £20.0 million , budget = £326 million , chancellor = David Willetts , vice_chancellor = Nishan Canagarajah , head_lab ...

for services to children's books. ''Forbidden Soldier'', a children's book about the second phase of the

English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I (" Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of r ...

, appeared in 2014, as did ''The Lost King: Richard III and the Princes in the Tower'', a biography of

Richard III Richard III (2 October 145222 August 1485) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 26 June 1483 until his death in 1485. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat and death at the Bat ...

Death

Alison Prince died on 12 October 2019, aged 88, having been ill for a number of years, which involved undergoing major heart surgery.

Selected works

These titles are or have recently been available in the UK, according to the websites of major internet booksellers:

Notes

References

;Citations * * * – including a 1966 photograph *''Trumpton''. Episode 6 – The Mayor's Birthday
part 1part 2
. YouTube. Retrieved 25 April 2012 *

External links

* *
Filmography by TV series for Alison Prince
at

IMDb IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Prince, Alison 1931 births 2019 deaths British children's writers 21st-century British women writers British women children's writers British horror writers Women horror writers Ghost story writers Guardian Children's Fiction Prize winners BBC people Writers from London People from the Isle of Arran People from Beckenham Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art