2) Summary of Michael Morpurgo´s autobiography

Michael was born 5th of October, 1943, St Alban’s in . He lived with his mother and his brother called Pieter, but as there was a War they were both evacuated to Northumberland when they were kids, because of the bombs. During the war, while his father was in the army, his mother met a man called Jack Morpurgo and wanted to be with him. So when his father came home he found out that his wife (Michael`s mother) wanted a divorce, so that she could marry Jack.

After the wedding they all moved to London. There he went to primary school at St Matthias in the Warwick Road, but later they were sent off to in – the Abbey, Ashhurst Wood for 6 years. There Michael changed schools and went to one in , The King’s School, where he got used to being away from home and starting liking to sing and to play rugby.

Later he went into the army to Sandhurst, where officers are trained. He liked the uniforms, the good food and the friends, but hated being shouted at, so he decided the army life was not for him. Later he met a girl called Clare, got married and had kids very young. After that Michael Morpurgo went off to university at King’s College, London to start all over again. He got his degree, and decided to be a teacher. That's why later he moved around a lot from school to school, but finally he ended up in a little village primary school in , at Wickhambreaux. There he ran out of other writers’ stories to read to the children, so he started making up some of his own. He wroted around 130 stories in , the most popular were , Private Peaceful, Why the Whales Came, The Butterfly Lion, Kensuke’s Kingdom

Michael and his wife decided to set up a charity called Farms for City Children, where the children could stay, made a partnership with a farming family they had got to know and invited their first city children down to the farm. They worked at this for over twenty-five years, but it has been running for forty years now, and over 90,000 kids have come to the 3 farms.