Michael Morpurgo
Michael Morpurgo, OBE, FRSL, FKC (born 5 October 1943) is an English author, poet, playwright and librettist who is known best for children's novels. Morpurgo became the third British Children's Laureate, from 2003 to 2005. Born in 1943, he attended schools in London, Sussex and Canterbury. He went on to King's College London, University of London to study English and French, graduating with a 3rd class degree. He then joined the teaching profession with a job in a primary school in Kent, where he discovered his vocation in life. Morpurgo's biological father was actor Tony Van Bridge. His mother, Kippe Cammaerts (otherwise Catherine Noel Kippe, daughter of Emile Cammaerts), who had been an actress, met (and in 1946 married) Jack Morpurgo (subsequently Professor of American Literature at the University of Leeds from 1969 to 1982 ) while Bridge was away during World War II. Morpurgo did not find out who his biological father was until he was 19, when watching the 1962 film version of Great Expectations with his mother, in which Bridge appeared. Michael Morpurgo was educated at schools in central London, Devon, Sussex and Kent;[citation needed] his unhappy experiences at boarding school would inform his novel The Butterfly Lion. He attended the independent prep school Mount House in Devon until he was 13. He then went to The King's School, an independent school in Canterbury, before entering the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.