James Riddell - Wartime and Writing

Wartime and Writing

During the Second World War, Riddell was based in Jerusalem and Syria. In 1942, he was seconded to the Australian 9th Army to set up the Middle East Ski and Mountaineering School at the Cedars of Lebanon above Beirut. He was awarded the MBE for his work, teaching upwards of 20,000 soldiers the techniques of mountain mobility and survival. While working at the War Office, he was pasting cuttings for a snowcraft manual when he inadvertently pasted together the head of a dog on the body of a camel. From that came the idea of "split" books for children, a series published in many languages.

In 1948, with the writer Nevil Shute, he made a six-month flight to Australia and back in a single-engine Percival Proctor monoplane. From that experience, Riddell wrote a travel book, Flight of Fancy, and Shute the novel, A Town Like Alice. Riddell's 1957 book, The Ski Runs of Switzerland, was the first detailed guide to Swiss resorts, followed by a similar book on Austria the following year.