RIP Richard Adams (Watership Down author)

[Gathursty]

Another very recent loss.

Watership Down author Richard Adams dies aged 96

The author of Watership Down, Richard Adams, has died aged 96, his daughter has said.

Juliet Johnson said her father had been "ailing for some time" but "died peacefully" on Christmas Eve.

Watership Down, a children's classic about a group of rabbits in search of a new home after their warren was destroyed, was first published in 1972.

Adams was 52 when he wrote it, after first telling the story to his two daughters on a long car journey.

It went on to become a best-seller, with tens of millions of copies bought around the world.

Watership Down was made into a film version in 1978 and enjoyed huge success, but was notoriously frightening for young children, with its graphic, apocalyptic scenes of impending doom.

The film's theme song Bright Eyes, sung by Art Garfunkel, spent six weeks at the top of the UK charts the following year.

...
from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38446309

Didn't watch the film in full or read the book but I have been on Watership Down earlier this Summer. Sadly, no rabbits to be seen.

 

[Calthrop]

A minor oddity, mentioned in Adams's (IMO fascinating) autobiography of his first three-odd decades, The Day Gone By: a childhood neighbour and acquaintance of Adams was the railway author George Behrend (1922 -- 2010), author of inter alia Gone With Regret, celebrating the Great Western Railway.

 

[Condor7]

Sad news. Watership Down has long been one of my favourite books.
R.I.P.