Fiona Dunbar is a children's author and illustrator based in the United Kingdom. She was born in 1961 in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire. She attended St Mary's School in Gerrard's Cross and left school at 16 to go to art college in High Wycombe. After working in a commercial art studio, which she labelled as 'disposible' work, and then as a freelance illustrator, she embarked on a writing career. Since her first book, The Truth Cookie, was published in 2010, she has written two trilogies and Toonhead. Her Lulu Baker trilogy was adapted to become a children's TV series called Jinx by Kindle Entertainment starring Amber Beattie. Jinx was first screened on CBBC in Autumn 2009.
Divine Freaks, the first of her new series featuring the character Kitty Slade, was published on 5 May 2011. The second of the series, Fire & Roses, was published on 1 September 2011.
On February 10, 2013, Dunbar appeared on Sky News to voice her opinions and concerns on library closures in the UK. In this appearance, she said how the government 'needed to bring libraries forward into the modern age' and that the situation was 'down to central government' (as opposed to local councils).
Coordinates: 56°00′10″N 2°31′01″W / 56.002725°N 2.516901°W / 56.002725; -2.516901
Dunbar (Scots [dʌnˈbaɾ]) is a town in East Lothian on the southeast coast of Scotland, approximately 28 miles (45 km) east of Edinburgh and 28 miles (45 km) from the English Border at Berwick-upon-Tweed.
Dunbar is a former Royal Burgh and gave its name to an ecclesiastical and civil parish. The parish extends around 7½ miles east to west and is 3½ miles deep at greatest extent (12 x 5.5 kilometres) or 11¼ square miles (c. 3000 hectares) and contains the villages of West Barns, Belhaven, East Barns (abandoned) and several hamlets and farms.
Its strategic position gave rise to a history full of incident and strife but Dunbar has become a quiet dormitory town popular with workers in nearby Edinburgh, who find it an affordable alternative to the capital itself. Until the 1960s the population of the town was little more than 3,500.
The town is served by Dunbar railway station. Dunbar is home to the Dunbar Lifeboat Station, the second oldest RNLI station in Scotland.
The Dunbar was a full-rigged ship that was wrecked near the entrance to Sydney Harbour, Australia in 1857 with the loss of 121 lives.
The Dunbar was launched on 30 November 1853 for London shipowner Duncan Dunbar and entered the passenger and cargo trade between London and Sydney early the following year. She was one of a number of large sailing ships that began trading to Australia as a result of the Australian gold rushes.
On the night of 20 August 1857, the ship approached the entrance to Sydney Harbour from the south, but heavy rain and a strong gale made navigating difficult. The ship's captain, James Green, either erroneously believing he had already passed the harbour's southern headland or mistaking a smaller break in the coastline known as The Gap for the port's entrance, drove the ship onto rocks. The force of the gale caused the Dunbar to break up. Crew member James Johnson was thrown against the cliffs from the impetus of the collision and managed to scramble to safety, however he remained undiscovered for two days. The remainder of the passengers and crew were drowned. A day of public mourning was declared. The remains of the bodies of twenty-two victims were recovered and interred in a single large tomb in Camperdown Cemetery in Newtown. Several other victims have individual monuments.
Dunbar is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: