Author of Stig of the Dump

Born: April 24, 1924

Died: July 10, 2018

CLIVE King, who has died aged 94, was a novelist best known for the children's classic Stig Of The Dump about a schoolboy who discovers a cave-boy living at the bottom of a chalk pit. The book drew on King's own adventures growing up with his three brothers in Kent and has sold more than two million copies since it was published in 1963.

King was born in Richmond, Surrey, in 1924, but when he was young his family moved to Ash, near Sevenoaks in Kent, where he and his brothers would explore a disused chalk pit at the bottom of the family garden.

His first published articles appeared in the school magazine; he then studied English at Downing College, Cambridge, and went on the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

During the Second World War, he served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. His service as a sailor and his work as a language teacher for the British Council also took him all over the world. Many of his books for children were inspired by the places he had visited, but it was the one set closest to his childhood home in Kent that launched his writing career.

Stig of the Dump, first published in 1963, is about a small boy named Barney who explores the dump at the bottom of a nearby chalk-pit, and finds a cave-boy who has made himself a house out of all kinds of junk. Barney’s magical escapades immediately captured the imagination of young readers, and they continue to do so to this day. Part of the appeal of the book were the highly evocative illustrations by Edward Ardizzone.

The story was adapted for television in 1981 and in 2002, and in 2013 was the subject of a radio programme by author David Almond in appreciation of the book’s 50th anniversary of publication. In 2015 King gave a collection of his work, including manuscripts, letters and cuttings to Seven Stories – the National Centre for Children’s Books.

King’s first book, Hamid of Aleppo, had been first published in 1958, but it was not until the mid 1970s that he left his job with the British Council and worked full-time as a writer. Some of his other books include The Twenty-Two Letters, The Town that Went South, The Night the Water Came, Me and My Million, Ninny’s Boat, The Sound of Propellers, The Seashore People, and Snakes and Snakes. He also wrote for children’s theatre, his plays including Poles Apart, Get the Message and The Butcher of Rye.

Francesca Dow, the MD of Penguin Random House children’s books, said: "This year our Stone Age Stig is 55 years old. However, the book’s depiction of the vivid interior life and imagination of a child, the delight of roaming free, making shelters and dens away from the grown-ups, as well as ideas such as the universal language of friendship - and even the importance of recycling - feel as fresh and relevant today as they did when Puffin first published it in 1963. I remember reading Stig of the Dump when I was little and longing for a special secret Stig and dump of my own."

Clive King is survived by his widow Penny and three children.