Born in Tynemouth, Northumberland in the north of England, on October 7, 1929, Robert Westall had a happy, secure childhood. His father, the foreman-engineer of a gasworks and an enormously competent human being, was the major formative influence on his life and Westall wrote Urn Burial 4197 about him with affection in his first novel, The Machine-Gunners and its sequel Fathom Five. Graduating from Durham University with honors and a degree in fine art in 1953, Westall spent two years in the military before entering Slade School, University of London, and receiving a diploma in fine art in 1957. That same year he took his first teaching position, as Art Master, with Erdington Hall Secondary Modern School in Birmingham. In 1958 he married Jean Underhill. Their only child, a son, died in a motorbike accident at age eighteen and Westall regards this as the single great unhappiness of his life...