Gene Kemp obituary

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/13/gene-kemp-obituary

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Gene Kemp, who has died aged 88, was a children’s writer who deftly chronicled the best of growing up in rural England at the end of the 20th century. She wrote character-led stories that were convincingly rooted in family and community.

She was best known for The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler (1977), which hinges on a sleight of hand: based on Tyke’s boisterous exploits, readers assume that the protagonist is a boy, only to be surprised at the end to find out she is a girl, Tyke being short for Theodora Tiler. Surprisingly, despite having been in print continuously since its publication in 1977, the secret remains well enough kept for new generations of readers to be surprised – and sometimes even annoyed – by the classic title.

Gene’s spirited and bold Tyke was the perfect character for the 1970s, when campaigning groups such as the Children’s Rights Workshop (now defunct) were active in challenging stereotyping in children’s books. At the time, there were few strong girl characters – typically the boys led and the girls followed – and a new generation of publishers, librarians and critics felt that things should change.

While many authors at the time resisted the pressure and some actively condemned it as “politically correct meddling”, Gene did not. Drawing the details from her experiences as a primary school teacher, writing about strong girls was entirely natural to her, and it never felt as though she had set out to have a “message”. As a result, she had the unusual double accolade of winning both the 1977 Carnegie medal, the much-coveted accolade from librarians, and the anti-establishment Children’s Rights Workshop “Other Award” for a book with a focus on a non-discriminatory representation of gender, race, class and disability alongside literary and aesthetic merit.

Gene drew on her ebullient sense of fun, her belief in the importance of friendship and her sharp ear for children’s dialogue in her many other books, most of which were for eight- to 12-year-olds. The title that launched her career, The Prime of Tamworth Pig (1972), was the first in a five-part series about a clever pig fighting for his rights, and a young boy, Thomas, who befriends him. Tyke Tiler was the first in a long sequence of stories about Cricklepit primary school, which remains one of the most realistic representations of modern primary-school life.

Cricklepit was directly based on St Sidwell’s primary school, Exeter – it even has a bell tower just like the one Tyke Tiler climbs – where Gene taught from 1963 to 1979. Others in the series include Charlie Lewis Plays for Time (1984), runner-up for the Whitbread award in 1985, and Just Ferret (1990), the touching story of a boy who is a mathematical whizz but can barely read, which was runner up for the 1990 Smarties award. Gene kept Cricklepit going for quarter of a century by returning to it with Snaggletooth’s Mystery (2002), an alternative version of the school’s past.

There were interesting one-off titles too, including Juniper (1986) and Seriously Weird (2003), both about children with disabilities, but neither in any way an “issue” book. Gene said about Seriously Weird and its protagonist, Troy: “‘Issues’ books do not make really good fiction. Characters, plot, description and dialogue make a book and what I most enjoy when writing are unusual people setting about their lives as best they can, and, most of all, I care for the inadequate, the rebels, the fearful, the bullies and the bullied, the deprived and the underdogs and the strange. The latter quality in Troy and the chaos he causes because of this strangeness is the theme of the book and this is what I want to bring home to the readers. But the real interest lies in his character.”

Gene also loved ghost stories. The Clock Tower Ghost (1981), Jason Bodger and the Priory Ghost (1985), and The Hairy Hands (1999) are equal parts humour and scariness. She moved into writing for a slightly older age group with No Place Like (1983) and I Can’t Stand Losing (1987), which reflected her lifelong commitment to socialist principles, the anti-nuclear campaign and support for the Greenham Common protesters.

Philippa Milnes-Smith, Gene’s former editor at Puffin Books, described her as “a warm, honest, generous and larger than life personality who did not hold back in showing her affection – or her forthright opinions about the things (and people) she liked rather less. Even in her 80s she lost none of her interest in children and writing about them.”

Gene was born in Wiggington, Staffordshire, to Alice (nee Sutton), a seamstress, and Albert Rushton, an electrician in the days before every house was connected to the national grid – he had to go round and turn the lights on for the village. She enjoyed an idyllic rural childhood in a house from which she could see the spires of Lichfield Cathedral. She won a place at Tamworth girls’ high school, where she excelled academically, and went to Exeter University to study English. Gene fell in love with Exeter, and her affection for Devon lasted for the rest of her life. After a brief spell teaching in Birmingham she returned to the area to teach. She was awarded an MA by the University of Exeter in 1984.

She is survived by a daughter, Judith, from her first marriage, to Norman Pattison, which ended in divorce; another daughter, Chantal, and son, Richard, from her second marriage, to Allan Kemp, who died in 1990; three grandchildren and one great-grandson.

• Gene Kemp, children’s author, born 27 December 1926; died 4 January 2015