Henrietta Branford

Henrietta Diana Primrose Longstaff Branford(12 January 1946 – 23 April 1999) was an English author of children's books. Her greatest success was Fire, Bed and Bone (1997), a historical novel set during the English peasants' revolt of 1381. For that she won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, a once-in-a-lifetime book award judged by a panel of British children's writers, and she was a highly commended runner up for the Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British subject.

Biography

Branford was born in India and raised in an isolated part of New Forest in Hampshire, where she learned about animals and learned to ride a horse. After living in many other places she moved to Southampton in 1980 with her husband Paul Carter, a photographer, and their three children Jack, Rose and Polly.

Branford had a variety of jobs: as a nanny, in shops, hotels and offices, and for a charity helping elderly people in South London. She trained as a community and youth worker at Goldsmiths' College from 1970 to 1972 but didn't enjoy it. She started writing as a career when she was 40 and in the thirteen years before her death she wrote 25 books for children from toddlers to teens. Her first novel was Royal Blunder, a good start. The Fated Sky and Fire, Bed and Bone are two others.