Michael Bond

Michael Bond was born in Newbury, Berkshire, England on 13th January 1926. He was educated at Presentation College, Reading. During World War II (on February 10, 1943), Bond survived an air raid in Reading. The building in which he was working collapsed under him, killing 41 people and injuring many more. Shortly afterwards he volunteered for aircrew service in the RAFas a 17-year-old but he was discharged after suffering from acute air sickness. He then served in the Middlesex Regiment of the British Army until 1947.

He began writing in 1945 and sold his first short story to a magazine called London Opinion. He was paid seven guineas, and thought he "wouldn't mind being a writer". In 1958, after producing several plays and short stories and while working as a BBC television cameraman (where he worked on Blue Peter for a time), his first book, A Bear Called Paddington, was published by William Collins & Sons (now HarperCollins Publishers).

This was the start of Bond's series of books recounting the tales of Paddington Bear, a bear from "darkest Peru", whose Aunt Lucy sends him to the United Kingdom, carrying a jar of marmalade. In the first book the Brown family find the bear at Paddington Station, and adopt him, naming the bear after the station. By 1965, his books were so successful that that he was able to give up his job with the BBC in order to become a full-time writer. He continued to write about Paddington Bear for the rest of his life, publishing a final story called Paddington at St. Paul's on the 60th anniversary of the first book shortly before his death on June 27, 2017.

Paddington wasn't his only creation. Bond also wrote another series of children's books about the adventures of a guinea pig named Olga da Polga, named after the Bond family's pet, as well as culinary mystery stories for adults, featuring Monsieur Pamplemousse and his faithful bloodhound, Pommes Frites. He wrote for television, including two short films and the animated BBC television series The Herbs (1968). And shortly after his 90th birthday, he wrote a Reflection on the Passing of the Years, which was read at the national service of thanksgiving to commemorate Queen Elizabeth II's 90th birthday at St. Paul's Cathedral in June 2016.

Bond leaves leaves behind one of the great literary legacies of our time. In 1997 Michael Bond was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to children's literature; in 2015, he was named Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) . He was married twice, and had two children and lived in London, not far from Paddington Station.