History Creator / RobertWestall

Westall's best known work was the Children's novel ''The Machine Gunners,'' published in 1975 and winner of the UsefulNotes/CarnegieMedal that year. He went on to win the Medal once more in 1982 for ''The Scarecrows.'' Most of his novels drew on his personal experiences as a child on UsefulNotes/TheHomeFront; ''The Machine Gunners'' was about a group of young children scavenging parts from downed aircraft who found an intact and functional machine gun from a crashed Heinkel He 111 bomber and developed from him telling his son Christopher stories about the things he had done as a child. The Gunners went on to be adapted for the television by Creator/TheBBC in 1983 and again for Radio in 2002

Best-known for his [[ChildrensLiterature Children's]] and YoungAdult fiction, Robert Atkinson Westall (7 October 1929 – 15 April 1993) was born in North Shields and grew up on Tyneside during the [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Second World War.]] He held a Bachelor's Degree in Fine Art from Durham University and a post-graduate degree in Sculpture from the Slade School of Art in London. After spending two years in the British Army he went on to teach Art and write for various publications, including being an art critic for the Guardian newspaper.