He survives her with a son and daughter.Jill Barklem was born in Epping in 1951. A number of health troubles followed and she died from pneumonia. A benign brain tumour was diagnosed and in 1994 she underwent radical surgery to remove it. While working on the last, however, Jill Barklem began to have difficulty seeing the page. The four later titles in the Brambly Hedge series were The Secret Staircase (1983), The High Hills (1986), Sea Story (1990), and Poppy’s Babies (1994). Unlike her, however, she took pains to be encouraging. Like Enid Blyton, Jill Barklem always replied to letters.

I’m afraid it isn’t good enough to publish.” On one occasion she sent an illustrated story to Enid Blyton, who sent the somewhat withering reply: “Thank you, Gillian, for your nice little letter and story. A childhood accident which left her with a detached retina meant that she was unable to take part in games at school and instead developed her talent for drawing.

She was born Gillian Gaze at Epping on and educated at Loughton High School. What really set the books apart, however, were Jill Barklem’s meticulous illustrations, which captured her love for the English countryside and her interest in traditional rural customs and crafts. Her first four books, Spring Story, Summer Story, Autumn Story and Winter Story, were published in 1980, and their evocation of a curtained, courteous world of miniature cottages tucked beneath tree trunks and hard-working mice proved an instant hit. Even so, someone was so impressed by her artwork that she went home with a £10,000 contract, the highest-ever deal offered for a children’s book. She was called in for an interview, but turned up on the wrong day. It was her husband David who suggested she should turn her daydreams of hedgerow life into a book.Īfter months of work, her first effort ended up on the “slush piles” at three publishers – until a sharp-eyed editor at Collins rescued it. After graduating she worked as an illustrator of children’s Bibles. Jill Barklem originally conceived the idea for the stories in the 1970s, gazing out of a train window at the Essex countryside while commuting on the Central Line from her home in Epping to St Martin’s School of Art. Jill Barklem, who has died aged 66, was the author and illustrator of the “Brambly Hedge” series of books for young children her tales of the adventures of a community of mice living amid the wild roses, brambles and elderberries of an Essex hedgerow became instant classics, were adapted into a series of stop-motion television specials, and spawned merchandise ranging from Royal Doulton figures to chocolate and stationery.

Autumn story jill barklem