Michael Bond
Michael Bond was born in Newbury in 1926. Six weeks later his parents left
town and settled in earby Reading. Luckily they took him with them and it was
there that he went to school and grew up with three guinea-pigs; Pip, Squeak
and Wilfred and a dog called Binkie.
At school he once got a report which stated that 'Bond suffers from a sense
of humour'; something he is still trying to work out.
One Christmas Eve Michael came across a toy bear left on the shelf of a London
store. He bought it for his wife and, as they then lived in that part of London,
they called it Paddington. He started to write about the bear and in 1958 A
Bear Called Paddington was published.
In 1965 Michael gave up his job as a cameraman to become a full-time writer.
Along with more Paddington books and a number of other projects, there followed
a series about a guinea-pig called Olga da Polga.
All four of the original Olga stories; The Tales
of Olga da Polga, Olga Meets Her Match, Olga Takes Charge and Olga
Carries On, plus new tales Olga Moves House and Olga Follows Her Nose are published by Oxford.
