Michael Morpurgo


Sir Michael Andrew Bridge Morpurgo, is an English book author, poet, playwright, and librettist who is known best for children's novels such as War Horse. His work is noted for its "magical storytelling", 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.

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. Both RADA graduates, his parents had met when they were acting in the same repertory company in 1938. His father came from a working-class family, while Kippe came from a family of actors, an opera singer, writers and poets. 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. Morpurgo's brother Pieter was born in 1942. When Morpurgo was born the following year, his father was stationed in Baghdad. While Van Bridge was away at war, Kippe Cammaerts met Jack Morpurgo. 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. Morpurgo's older brother, Pieter Morpurgo, later became a BBC television producer and director. He has two younger siblings, Mark and Kay. 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. Towards the end of her life she was an alcoholic.
Morpurgo and his brother were evacuated to Northumberland when they were very young. After returning to London, the family lived at Philbeach Gardens, Earl's Court, where the children played in the bombsites. 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, 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. His unhappy experiences at boarding school would later inform his novel The Butterfly Lion. After six years at The Abbey school in Ashurst Wood, 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. 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!". 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." His stepfather decided he should join the army and Morpurgo attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. 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, and graduated with a third class degree. He then joined the teaching profession with a job at Wickhambreaux Primary School in Canterbury, Kent. He also, from 1968, briefly taught at St. Faith's School in Cambridge.

Personal life

Aged 19, Morpurgo married Clare, eldest daughter of Sir Allen Lane, the founder of Penguin Books, in 1963. They had met the previous year on holiday in Corfu through Morpurgo's stepfather, who was an editor at Penguin at the time. Clare was pregnant with their first child and Morpurgo has referred to it as a shotgun wedding. Their three children, Sebastian, Horatio and Rosalind, are all named after Shakespearian characters.
Morpurgo was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer in 2017 and received radiotherapy. He has since recovered.

Farms for City Children

In 1976, Morpurgo and his wife Clare established the charity Farms for City Children, with the primary aim of providing children from inner city areas with experience of the countryside. The programme involves the children spending a week at a countryside farm, during which they take part in purposeful farmyard work. 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, 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 and Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. 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.

Children's Laureate

Morpurgo and Hughes, then Poet Laureate, originated the idea of Children's Laureate role. Morpurgo became the third person to fill the two-year position, from 2003 to 2005.
Gentle Giant was presented as an opera by composer Stephen McNeff and librettist Mike Kenny at the Royal Opera House in 2006. Film versions have been made of Friend or Foe, Private Peaceful and Why the Whales Came, the latter also being adapted to a stage play. My Friend Walter 'Purple Penguins' and Out of the Ashes have been adapted for television.
Composer Stephen Barlow created a musical adaptation of Rainbow Bear, narrated by his wife Joanna Lumley. This was subsequently presented as a ballet by the National Youth Ballet of Great Britain in August 2010.
War Horse has been adapted as a radio broadcast and as a stage play by Nick Stafford, premiering at the National Theatre, London, on 17 October 2007. The horses were played by life-sized horse puppets designed and built by the Handspring Puppet Company of South Africa. It won two Olivier Awards in 2007. Initially intended to run for 16 weeks, due to popular demand the show transferred to the New London Theatre in the West End on 28 March 2009. It closed in the West End after eight years, having been seen by 2.7 million people in London and seven million worldwide at the time. It was the most successful production of the National Theatre ever.
On 15 March 2011, the show premiered on Broadway at the Vivian Beaumont Theater. The play's Broadway production won five Tony Awards, including Best Play. It went on several UK tours and was also staged in Australia, Canada, China, Germany, and The Netherlands. It was seen by seven million people outside the UK.
In 2011, War Horse was adapted by Lee Hall and Richard Curtis as a British film directed by Steven Spielberg. The film was nominated numerous awards, including six Academy Awards and five BAFTA Awards.
Waiting for Anya was adapted as a film of the same title released in 2020.

Reception and impact

Reading Matters website calls Morpurgo's 1999 Kensuke's Kingdom "A quietly told story, but plenty of drama and emotion."
The Guardian describes Private Peaceful, his 2003 novel for older children, as a "humanising and humane work".

Literary awards and prizes

;Shortlisted
;Awarded
In a January 2014 article, Morpurgo stated "as we begin to mark the centenary of the first world war, we should honour those who died, most certainly, and gratefully too, but we should never glorify... Come each November over the next four years, let the red poppy and the white poppy be worn together to honour those who died, to keep our faith with them, to make of this world a place where freedom and peace can reign together."
In August 2014, Morpurgo was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue.
Prior to the 2015 general election, he was one of several celebrities who endorsed the parliamentary candidacy of the Green Party's Caroline Lucas.
In 2016, he condemned government plans to extend grammar schools as divisive and “quite deeply stupid”.
In the run-up to the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, Morpurgo expressed his support for the European Union in an interview with the BBC, and reinforced this with a ten-minute BBC Radio 4 '' on 5 August 2018.

Honours and appointments

Morpurgo and his wife Clare were both appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 1999 Birthday Honours for services to young people. He was advanced to Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2006 Birthday Honours for services to literature and was made a Knight Bachelor in the 2018 New Year Honours for services to literature and charity.
Morpurgo was awarded an honorary doctorate at Bishop Grosseteste University on 17 July 2013. He was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters by Newcastle University on 12 July 2017.
Morpurgo was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant for Devon on 10 April 2015.

Radio and television broadcasts