Blog - Dick King-Smith

Pets For Keeps

Published on Wednesday, March 20th, 2019

Over the years, Dick had hundreds of pets of all different sorts. From budgerigars to mice, guinea pigs, rabbits, rats, tortoises, cats and dogs and many more. He also had lots of farm animals during his twenty years as a farmer, and these included cows, goats, hens, ducks, pheasants and of course, pigs! As most […]

Dick King-Smith, My Dad

Published on Monday, March 4th, 2019

Every so often I get a little bit of reflected glory, when someone connects my surname with the man who wrote “The Sheep-Pig” and found fame when it was made into the delightful film “Babe”. Of course, that isn’t quite the full story: my father, Dick King-Smith, wrote over 100 books – starting in 1977 […]

Storytelling Week

Published on Wednesday, January 30th, 2019

Wishing everyone a happy Storytelling Week. Reading stories aloud to children is a fantastic activity, with many benefits for the child and the reader. These benefits include helping children acquire early language skills, enabling them to develop a positive association between books and pleasure and building a solid foundation for school and later success. It […]

Dick’s TV Career

Published on Friday, January 25th, 2019

During the 1980’s and 1990’s, Dick was lucky enough to present several children’s television shows, including one called Rub a Dub Tub, one called Pob’s Programme and one called Tumbledown Farm. In all three programmes, Dick would meet lots of different animals, accompanied by this faithful Dachshund Dodo, or his brother Tony’s lovely black Labrador […]

Dick’s First Book

Published on Thursday, January 10th, 2019

Many years ago, in 1976, when Dick was 54 years old, he started to write his first story for children, The Fox Busters. It was based on his experience of being a farmer twenty years earlier, when one day a daring fox had attacked and killed in broad daylight some fine white cockerels that Dick […]

Amusing Animal Poems

Published on Thursday, December 13th, 2018

Dick wrote poetry throughout his life, much of it humorous. He once teamed up with the brilliant Quentin Blake to make a book called Alphabeasts. We absolutely love Quentin’s illustrations as they really help Dick’s poems come to life.

The Queen’s Nose: A BBC Radio Full-Cast Dramatisation

Published on Wednesday, November 21st, 2018

Dick’s enchanting story The Queen’s Nose, a tale about Harmony Parker and her magical 50 pence piece, has been adapted into a BBC radio full-cast dramatisation, which is now available to own! Harmony Parker is ten years old and loves animals. She longs for a pet of her very own, but her parents won’t allow […]

Wilhelmina the Orphaned Badger Cub

Published on Monday, November 5th, 2018

Dick and his whole family were always very keen on animals. There were always lots of dogs, birds, some cats and various other pets at their family home. One day in around 1953, one of the family came across a badger cub that had fallen through the bars of a cattle grid near their home […]

Dick Reads The Sheep-Pig

Published on Monday, September 10th, 2018

Here’s some footage of Dick reading a chapter from The Sheep-Pig to a group of children at Farmborough Church Primary School near Bath, the school where Dick taught for seven years before becoming a children’s author. There are lots more videos of Dick and the films and television programmes based on his books on the […]

Guess the Rabbit’s Weight

Published on Monday, August 20th, 2018

Dick used to keep rabbits and Frank, a French Lop breed (just visible in his hutch, munching his way through some greens) was a giant amongst them. Queen Charlton, the village in which Dick lived, holds an annual fête, and in 1983 Dick’s stall was a guess the rabbit’s weight competition. (reminiscent of how Babe […]

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