goodnight mister tom by michelle magorian

In a sense, my mother gave both of them to me. The man was Tom Oakley, a reclusive and ill-tempered widower in his sixties. I knew that the man who lived at the end of the graveyard where I had seen William standing would take him in. My parents’ generation made it possible for poor people to have free medical care, free dental care, free spectacles and for young people to remain at school beyond the age of fourteen When I asked someone what a house was doing at the end of a graveyard, I was told: “That’s where the man who looks after the graves lives.”

When we reached the graveyard on the day of her funeral, I was surprised to see not only trees and squirrels but a small house. I instantly knew that the boy in my head – William Beech, an evacuee sent from the city to live in the countryside to escape Nazi bombs – came from that background.Īnd then suddenly my mother died. The mothers would also line the inside of their children’s underwear with newspapers to keep them warm. The 1998 BAFTA award-winning TV film of the book starring John Thaw attracted 14 million viewers.This was common for families who lived in the slums. The book has sold in excess of 1.2 million copies in the UK alone and has been published in Denmark, USA, Japan, Holland, Sweden, Finland, France and Germany. It has won numerous awards including The Guardian Children's Fiction Award. Goodnight Mister Tom was first published in the UK in 1981. She wrote the book in between acting jobs and on Sunday when she was working in the theatre. Michelle's first novel Goodnight Mister Tom grew out of two short stories. Michelle also toured with her one-woman mime show in Italy and England. Since then Michelle has worked in theatre, television and films and has an established reputation as a comedienne, performing in plays and musicals. It was during those years that she started writing regularly.įrom 1969-1970 she was a mime student at Marcel Marceau's L'Ecole International de Mime in Paris. Michelle trained for the theatre at The Rose Bruford College of speech and drama in Kent from 1968 to 1969.

She was educated at Kilbreda college, Mentone (Victoria, Australia) and the Covent of the Cross, Waterlooville, Hampshire.

Goodnight mister tom by michelle magorian