Books For Keeps
  • Home
  • Reviews
  • Articles
  • Past Issues
  • Latest Issue
  • Authors and Artists
  • Latest News
  • Search
  • Menu Menu
September 1, 2018/in Obituary /by Ellie
This article is featured in BfK 232 September 2018
This article is in the Obituary Category

Obituary: Clive King

Author: Nicholas Tucker

Clive King

24 April 1924 – 10 July 2018

Author of Stig of the Dump, still one of the best-known titles in twentieth century children’s literature, Clive King along with his three brothers was brought up close to the village of Ash on the Kentish North Downs. Going on to read English at Cambridge, he joined the Royal Navy in 1943 and served on the Arctic convoys, repeatedly making what Churchill described as ‘the worst journey in the world.’

Working for the British Council after the war while writing in his spare time, King returned to Ash now with a small son and daughter. Seeing them playing the same games around the disused chalk pit he had once explored as a boy, he came up with the idea of two modern children making contact with a stone-age child of the same age. Taking three years to finish, the story tells how they play splendid games together, ingeniously re-cycling the rubbish they find there to construct dens and establish a regular water supply. Stig himself, all shaggy black hair and broad grins, although wordless comes over as an ideal companion. Gentle hints scattered throughout suggest that he is in in fact a figment of the children’s imagination.  But for eight-year-old Barney, the younger of the two children, ‘Stig’s always here. He’s my friend,’ and thousands of child readers ever since have shared the same view. But A.A. Milne’s stories had always been a favourite for King, and there are echoes in the last chapter of Christopher Robin’s final farewell to Pooh Bear.

Turned down by twelve publishers the story was accepted by Kaye Webb at Puffin Books who then waited a year before publication. Beautifully illustrated by Edward Ardizzone, it went on to sell over two million copies and remains in print. It was followed by sixteen more novels, including The 22 Letters, a stirring historical adventure within which three brothers devise an early alphabet. There was also Ninny’s Boat, set in the fifth century AD at a time when it was the Angles who were the migrants coming to Britain for a better life. This novel was partially informed by King’s own time working with Vietnamese Boat People while he was stationed in Pakistan. He also drew on his British Council experience in The Night the Water Came, which describes how a boy in Bangladesh survives a cyclone, aided by hard-pressed relief workers. But there were to be no more best-sellers, with King living a frugal life after moving to a marshman’s cottage on the Norfolk coast, which he enjoyed renovating when not walking the open spaces all around him.

The original chalk pit that inspired Stig of the Dump is now buried underneath a golf course. But King’s enticing image of children allowed to play for hours on their own in untamed countryside never fades, particularly in today’s more anxious parental climate. Living to the age of 94, he was still receiving fan letters about Stig up to his death.

Nicholas Tucker is honorary senior lecturer in Cultural and Community Studies at Sussex University.

Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on WhatsApp
  • Share on Pinterest
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share on Reddit
  • Share by Mail
https://booksforkeeps.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/clive-king-2014-scaled.jpg 2560 1707 Ellie http://booksforkeeps.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/bfklogo.png Ellie2018-09-01 12:55:372021-11-22 11:52:32Obituary: Clive King
BfK 254 May 2022 Download BfK Issue BfK 254 May 2022
Skip to an Issue:

Related Articles

Obituary: Shirley Hughes
BfK 253 March 2022
Obituary: Victor Ambrus
BfK 247 March 2021
Obituary: Jill Paton Walsh
BfK 245 November 2020
Obituary: Alec Davis
BfK 245 November 2020
Obituary: Wendy Cooling
BfK 244 September 2020
Obituary: Emma Langley
BfK 244 September 2020
Obituary: Margaret Meek Spencer
BfK 242 May 2020
Obituary: Albert Uderzo
BfK 241 March 2020

About Us

Launched in 1980, we’ve reviewed hundreds of new children’s books each year and published articles on every aspect of writing for children.

Read More

Follow Us

Latest News

Peter Bently and Steven Lenton named winners of The Children’s Book Award 2022

June 27, 2022

Shortlist for the 2022 SLA Information Book Award

June 23, 2022

2022 Yoto Carnegie Greenaway Winners Announced

June 16, 2022

Contact Us

Books for Keeps,
30 Winton Avenue,
London,
N11 2AT

Telephone: 0780 789 3369

ISSN: 0143-909X (this is our International Standard Serial Number).

© Copyright 2022 - Books For Keeps | Proudly Built by Lemongrass Media - Web Design Buckinghamshire
Classics in Short No.131: The Runaway   Good Reads: Humbie Primary School
Scroll to top