Gordon Snell is a British author of

children's literature Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. In addition to conventional literary genres, modern children's literature is classified by the intended age of the reade ...

and scriptwriter. He was married to Irish author

Maeve Binchy Anne Maeve Binchy Snell (28 May 1939Born 1939 as per biography, ''Maeve Binchy'' by Piers Dudgeon, Thomas Dunne Books 2013; (hardcover), pp. 4, 280, 302; (ebook) – 30 July 2012) was an Irish novelist, playwright, short story writer, column ...

from 1977 until her death in 2012. He lives in the home that he shared with his late wife in

Dalkey Dalkey ( ; ) is a village in Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown county southeast of Dublin, Ireland. It was founded as a Viking settlement and became a port in the Middle Ages. According to chronicler John Clyn (c.1286–c.1349), it was one of the port ...

, outside of

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

Early life

Snell was born in

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

in 1932.Shennan, Margaret. Out in the Midday Sun: The British in Malaya 1880-1960. Singapore: Monsoon Books Pte. Limited, 2015. He was an only child, and lived with his mother and father in Singapore during the British colonization period. He went with his mother to Australia looking for a boarding school for him. They remained in Australia when Singapore was invaded by the Japanese in February 1942. He attended the Geelong College in Victoria, leaving in 1946. He was separated from his father for three years, who was taken prisoner during the

Japanese occupation of Singapore , officially , was the name for Colony of Singapore, Singapore when it was occupied and ruled by the Empire of Japan, following the fall and surrender of British military forces on 15 February 1942 during World War II. The Japanese military ...

of World War II. After the war, the family moved to the UK.'We wrote for different audiences, it made for a harmonious home'.
Irish Independent, September 30, 2018 He finished

Secondary school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...

in Wiltshire. At

Dauntsey's School Dauntsey's School is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school (Private schools in the United Kingdom, fee-charging boarding school, boarding and day school) for pupils aged 11–18 in the village of West Lavington, Wiltshire, England. T ...

he collaborated in school plays with

Adrian Mitchell Adrian Mitchell FRSL (24 October 1932 – 20 December 2008) was an English poet, novelist, and playwright. A former journalist, he became a noted figure on the British left. For almost half a century he was the foremost poet of the country's C ...

. He attended Oxford, where he was a friend and classmate of Bernard Donoughue.

Maeve Binchy

Snell met

at the BBC where he was a freelance producer. He took his future wife on a hovercraft trip to

Boulogne Boulogne-sur-Mer (; ; ; or ''Bononia''), often called just Boulogne (, ), is a coastal city in Hauts-de-France, Northern France. It is a Subprefectures in France, sub-prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Pas-de-Calais. Boul ...

. But, they spent all their time there talking to each other, and never saw Boulogne. He and Maeve married in 1977. Working freelance, they did not have to live near publishers in London, and ultimately moved to her hometown,

(just outside

). For Gordon's 65th birthday, Maeve gave him a surprise gift of a rose variety named after him. In 2011, the couple appeared together on the Irish television

soap opera A soap opera (also called a daytime drama or soap) is a genre of a long-running radio or television Serial (radio and television), serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term ''soap opera'' originat ...

, ''

Fair City ''Fair City'' is an Irish television soap opera which has been broadcast on RTÉ One since 1989. Produced by the public service broadcaster RTE, it first aired on Monday, 18 September 1989. It has won several awards and is both the most po ...

''. He was by her hospital bedside when she died the following year. At Maeve's death, her estate was valued at ten million euros, of which two thirds went to Gordon.

Writing

His books include ''Amy's Wonderful Nest'', ''Tina and the Tooth Fairy'' and ''The Supermarket Ghost''. His other books include ''The Phantom Horseman'', ''Dangerous Treasure'', ''The Mystery of Monk Island'', ''The Curse of Werewolf Castle'' and ''The Tex and Sheelagh Omnibus''. He has commissioned and edited the collection ''Thicker Than Water'' on growing up, contributed to by Irish and Irish-American writers.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Snell, Gordon Living people English children's writers 20th-century English writers 21st-century English writers 20th-century English male writers 21st-century English male writers Binchy family People from Singapore English expatriates in Ireland 1932 births