Mister Cleghorn's Seal

Judith Kerr

Judith Kerr was born on 14 June 1923 in Berlin but escaped from Hitler's Germany with her parents and brother in 1933 when she was nine years old. Her father was a drama critic and a distinguished writer whose books were burned by the Nazis. The family passed through Switzerland and France before arriving finally in England in 1936.

Judith went to eleven different schools, worked in the Red Cross during the war, and won a scholarship to the Central School of Arts and Crafts in 1945. Since then, she has worked as an artist, a BBC television scriptwriter and, for many decades now, as author and illustrator of children's books.

Judith has a daughter who is a designer and a son who is a novelist. She lives in London.

Judith won our Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016.