Life
Bond was born in Newbury and raised in Reading, Berkshire, where his visits to Reading Station to watch the,"Cornish Riviera Express", go steaming through started a love of trains. He was educated at Presentation College, a Catholic school in Reading.
In February 1943, Michael Bond survived an air raid in Reading. The building in which he was working collapsed under him, killing 41 people and injured many more. Later in World War II, he served in both the Royal Air Force and the Middlesex Regiment of the British Army.
Bond began writing in 1945 and sold his first short story to the magazine London Opinion. In 1958, after producing a number of plays and short stories and while working as a BBC television cameraman (where he worked on Blue Peter for a time), his first book, A Bear Called Paddington, was published. This was the start of Bond's most famous series of books, telling tales of a bear from "Darkest Peru", whose Aunt Lucy sends him to England, carrying a jar of marmalade. The Brown family found the bear at Paddington Station, and adopted him, naming the bear after the station. By 1967, Bond was able to give up his BBC job to work full-time as a writer. Paddington's adventures have been published in nearly twenty countries, and have inspired pop bands, race horses, plays, hot air balloons and a TV series. Bond stated in December 2007 that he did not plan to continue the adventures of Paddington Bear in further volumes.
Bond has also written another series of children's books, the adventures of a guinea pig named Olga da Polga, as well as the animated BBC TV series The Herbs. Bond also writes culinary mystery stories for adults featuring Monsieur Pamplemousse and his faithful bloodhound, Pommes Frites.
In 1997, Bond was awarded the OBE for services to children's literature. On 6 July 2007 the University of Reading awarded him an Honorary Doctor of Letters.
Bond is married with two adult children and lives in London, not far from Paddington Station.
Read more about this topic: Michael Bond
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