Born in Newcastle, David Almond trained to be a teacher, thinking it would fit in well with his dreams of becoming a writer. It didn't. But after he started selling short stories to magazines, he eventually resigned, and went on to write Skellig, the children's book about an angel/tramp who lives in a garage. It won him the Carnegie medal and the Whitbread children's award, and his subsequent children's books, from Kit's Wilderness to The Fire-Eaters , have packed his shelves with further prizes. In his latest novel, The Tightrope Walkers, he returns to writing for adults.
The Tightrope Walkers tells the story of Dom, growing up in the 60s on a council estate by the Tyne. How much of it echoes your own childhood?
It draws in lots of elements of my own past. I grew up on a council estate on Tyneside. Several members of my family worked in shipyards, and once, when I was a student, like Dom I did two sessions working in one. I was a tank cleaner, and it was absolutely terrifying, one of the most scary things I have ever done.
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