Here in the UK government ministers are obsessing about streaming within school education. They assume everyone is interested in being educated at school. Rosemary Sutcliff wasn’t …

My schooling began late, owing to a childhood illness, and ended when I was only fourteen, owing to my entire lack of interest in being educated. But I showed signs of being able to paint, and so from school I went to art school, trained hard, and eventually became a professional miniature painter. I did not start to write until the end of the War, but now I have switched completely from one medium to the other, and it is several years since I last touched paint.

• Source: From Rosemary Sutcliff’s monograph about Rudyard Kipling
• More biographical information about Rosemary Sutcliff on this blog (and see tabs at top of page)