Author of Watershed Down, Richard Adams, has died aged 96

The author of Watership Down, Richard Adams, has died aged 96. Watership Down, about rabbits, became one of the best selling children's books of all time and was made into a cartoon in the 1970s.

Watership Down is a real place, in Hampshire, southern England, near the area where Adams grew up. The book was based on the experiences of a small group of rabbits who possess their own culture, language, proverbs, poetry, and mythology. Adams admired author Rudyard Kipling who made him realise that animals in stories could think and talk.

To create his rabbit characters, he drew inspiration from people he met and from literature. Bigwig was based on an officer he had known in the war, while Fiver was derived from Cassandra from Greek mythology who had the power of prophecy. Other rabbits include Hazel (the main character), Blackberry, Bluebell, Haystack, Silver, and the Black Rabbit of Inle.

Richard George Adams was born 9 May 1920. Watership Down was published in Britain in 1972 when Adams was 52 years old. Other works by Adams include Shardik (1974), The Plague Dogs (1977), Traveller (1988), and a follow up to Watership Down called Tales From Watership Down (1996), as well as his 1990 autobiography The Day Gone By.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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