Clive King (1924-2018) was born in Richmond, Surrey, and attended King's School, Rochester; Downing College, Cambridge; and the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. From 1943 to 1947, King served in the Royal Navy, voyaging to Iceland, the Russian Arctic, India, Sri Lanka, Australia, the East Indies, Malaysia, and Japan. Civilian postings as an officer of the British Council took him to Amsterdam, Belfast, Aleppo, Damascus, Beirut, Dhaka, and Madras (now Chennai). Several of these locales provided material for his nineteen children's stories, but his best-known book, Stig of the Dump, was written during an educational job in Rye in East Sussex. King married, divorced, and married again, and is survived by three children, eight grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.