British author Robert Atkinson Westall was born in Tynemouth, Northumberland, England on October 7, 1929. After attending Tynemouth High School and receiving a fine arts degree at Durham University in 1953 with first-class honors, Westall served in the Royal Signals of the British Army from 1953-1955. Westall continued his fine arts studies at the Slade School of the University of London, receiving his Doctor of Fine Arts degree in 1957.

Westall married Jean Underhill in 1958 and had one son, Christopher, for whom Westall wrote several of his early books, including The Machine Gunners. As Westall explains, "I wrote [The Machine Gunners] only for my son, then twelve. To tell him how it felt to be me, when I was twelve." Westall used his experience as a child in World War II as a basis for the events of The Machine-Gunners. At eighteen Christopher Westall was killed in a...