William Earl Johns

AF later remembered her childhood, at home, as full of beatings and beltings. This made her into a fanatic for justice and equality, though she felt it might equally easily have produced a working-class fascist...

DM was a passionate reader as a child, devouring children's adventure books (especially series like W. E. Johns 's Biggles and Arthur Ransome 's Swallows and Amazons), rejecting classical stories like those of Louisa Alcott