Barbara Grace de Riemer Sleigh (1906–1982) was an English children's writer and broadcaster. She is remembered most for her Carbonel series about a king of cats.

Family and career

Barbara Sleigh was born on 9 January 1906 in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

, the daughter of an artist, Bernard Sleigh, and his wife Stella, née Phillp, who had married in 1901. Both parents came from a

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

background, but she was brought up an

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

. The family moved to

Chesham Chesham ( , ) is a market town and civil parish in Buckinghamshire, England, United Kingdom, south-east of the county town of Aylesbury, about north-west of Charing Cross, central London, and part of the London metropolitan area, London ...

for a time, then back to Birmingham. Their marriage broke up in about 1914. Her older brother, Brocas Linwood Sleigh (1902–1965), would also become a writer. Having attended art college and teachers' training college, Sleigh taught in various schools before joining the teacher training department at

Goldsmiths College Goldsmiths, University of London, formerly Goldsmiths College, University of London, is a Member institutions of the University of London, constituent research university of the University of London. It was originally founded in 1891 as The G ...

in London in 1929. She went to work for the BBC programme ''

Children's Hour ''Children's Hour'', initially ''The Children's Hour'', was the BBC's principal recreational service for children (as distinct from "Broadcasts to Schools") which began during the period when radio was the only medium of broadcasting. ''Childre ...

'' in 1932. There, in 1935, she married a colleague, David Davis (1908–1996) at

Dunchurch Dunchurch is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Rugby, approximately south-west of central Rugby, Warwickshire, Rugby in Warwickshire, England. The civil parish, which also includes the nearby hamlet of Toft, Warwickshire, Toft, had ...

, Warwickshire, but BBC house rules at the time would not allow husbands and wives to work in the same department. She therefore resigned and turned to freelance writing, film criticism and broadcasting. She and Davis had one son and two daughters. Barbara Sleigh died in 1982.

Writings

Sleigh's best-known novels for children are the three in the Carbonel series (1955–1978), about a king of cats. These Carbonel books are still in print. Also centred on cats, but for a slightly older age group, is her 1962 novel '' No One Must Know'', a realistic story of a group of neighbouring children attempting to evade a landlord's ban on pets. '' The Snowball'' (1969) is a fantasy, in which the snowball turns into a snow-child, causing some fun and chaos in the family. The other writings by Sleigh include novels for older children, notably '' Jessamy'', a realistic 1967 time-slip novel; collections of stories; large amounts of radio adaptation; several picture books for younger children; and some educational readers. Several of her books came out in

Puffin Puffins are any of three species of small alcids (auks) in the bird genus ''Fratercula''. These are pelagic seabirds that feed primarily by diving in the water. They breed in large colonies on coastal cliffs or offshore islands, nesting in crev ...

, the Penguin imprint; she wrote an article in 1967 for the first number of the house magazine ''Puffin Post''. Sleigh was included in ''Uncle Mac's Children's Hour Book'' (Purnell, . 1950, in the 1974 children's anthology of stories and poems ''Happy Families'', edited by Barbara Willard, and in the ''Puffin Annual'' (1974), edited by

Kaye Webb Kathleen ("Kaye") Webb (26 January 1914 – 16 January 1996), was a British editor and publisher. She has been called an "enormously influential children's editor" and "brilliant as an innovator of highly successful marketing strategies". S ...

and others. Her final work was as the editor of an anthology of stories about witches: ''Broomsticks and Beasticles'' (1981)..

Bibliography

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sleigh, Barbara 1906 births 1982 deaths English children's writers BBC people Academics of Goldsmiths, University of London English Anglicans Anglican writers Writers from Birmingham, West Midlands Mass media people from Birmingham, West Midlands