BBC7

Tim Bowler was born in 1953 in Leigh-on-Sea. Much of his time as a boy was spent in or on or just looking at the water.

He went to the local grammar school and at nineteen went away to university in Norwich, where he studied Swedish and Scandinavian.

After graduating, he married and worked in forestry, before going fulltime as a freelance writer and translator. He's been writing since the age of five.

He started his first novel, Midget, at the age of 25 and wrote most of it during the early mornings between 3-7 a.m. before going out to work.

Tim now writes in an upstairs study which his wife calls Tim's Dream Factory! He thinks writing is like tickling a trout - holding your hand out and trying to coax the ideas to swim into your grasp.

He also wrote the book Storm Catchers and won the Carnegie Medal for his book River Boy.