For award-winning, internationally-acclaimed author Rosemary Sutcliff (1920-92). By Anthony Lawton: godson, cousin & literary executor. Rosemary Sutcliff wrote historical fiction, children's literature and books, films, TV & radio, including The Eagle of the Ninth, Sword at Sunset, Song for a Dark Queen, The Mark of the Horse Lord, The Silver Branch, The Lantern Bearers, Dawn Wind, Blue Remembered Hills.
His parents, watching their son grow increasingly miserable in public school, enrolled him (Luke Hayes-Alexander, now of Luke’s Gastronomy in Toronto, Canada) at Sempar, a small private school that provided a classical education. At the school, the boy encountered for the first time a passion for learning that matched his own. He studied Beowulf and Rosemary Sutcliff’s novels about Roman Britain; his class acted out the parts in Julius Caesar. Computers were available but rarely turned on. Each week, students were escorted to the local public library to borrow as many books as they could carry.