M. Pardoe

Margot Pardoe was born in 1902. After a well-travelled youth and time spent training as an opera singer in Paris, she began writing after marrying John Swift in 1934. Her first book, The Far Island was published in 1936 and tells the story of two children used to a lifestyle of public school and foreign travel who find their circumstances greatly reduced when they are unexpectedly orphaned. Their previously unknown great-grandmother sends them to live on the remote Orcadian island of Mora where they learn to be more self-sufficient and resourceful but also discover some of the classic elements of children’s fiction – a ghost story and lost treasure. Bunkle, Margot’s best-loved character, is the irrepressible younger brother of Jill and Robin de Salis. So named by them because he talks such a lot of bunk, he appears for the first time in Four Plus Bunkle, a marvellous adventure involving spies and stowing away on Continental trains. There were eleven more Bunkle titles and his popularity was further boosted by the BBC Children’s Hour radio dramatisations. The 1940s and ’50s were a productive time for Margot with two more series of books appearing as well as two thrillers aimed at the teenage market. The author’s last book was Bunkle’s final appearance in Bunkle Brings It Off in 1961. Margot retired from writing after this and enjoyed a peaceful retirement, devoting much of her energies to painting. She died in 1996. Following the publication of The Far Island, we will begin our reprints of the Bunkle series starting with Bunkle’s Brainwave.