| Intro | British writer | ||
| Is | Writer | ||
| From | United Kingdom | ||
| Type | Literature | ||
| Gender | male | ||
| Birth | 16 June 1933, Colne | ||
| Age: | 87 years | ||
| Star sign | Gemini | ||
| Family |
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John Arthur Cunliffe (born 16 June 1933) is an English children’s book author and presenter who created the characters of Postman Pat and Rosie and Jim.
Life and career
John Arthur Cunliffe lived in Kendal, Westmorland for six years, and it was the small towns and villages of that area which would provide the inspiration for his most famous character, Postman Pat. Greendale, where Postman Pat is set, is based on the valley of Longsleddale, near Kendal. After the success of the TV series, which he wrote as the result of a commission from the BBC, (produced by Ivor Wood) which debuted in 1981, Cunliffe became something of a local celebrity, even having a room dedicated to him at Kendal’s Museum of Lakeland Life.
Cunliffe has always had an interest in reading, stating that when he was a child he enjoyed the novels of writers such as H. Rider Haggard, Sax Rohmer, Norman Hunter’s Professor Branestawm stories and W. E. Johns’s Biggles books. Indeed, Cunliffe worked for many years as a librarian, and also as a teacher.
Cunliffe’s other well-known creation, Rosie and Jim, was also written for television in the 1990s. He scripted and presented the first 50 episodes, then turned some of them into books. Cunliffe intended to create a series more under his control, after being disappointed by some of the merchandising and tie-in books for Postman Pat, over which he did not have control.
In 2010 he released “Ghosts”, a children’s story for the iPad, through the Ashley Bolser Agency in Leeds.
He has written many other books for children.