Raymond Briggs, 74, trained at the Wimbledon School of Art and the Slade. His father was a milkman and his mother a maidservant. Since 1957, he has been an illustrator and writer, mainly of children’s books but also adult political satires, stage plays and radio plays.

His best known titles are Father Christmas (1973), Fungus the Bogeyman (1977), The Snowman (1978), When The Wind Blows (1982), The Tinpot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman (1984), The Man (1992), and Ethel & Ernest (1998).

His books have won many awards including Illustrated Book of the Year, Children’s Book of the Year, the Kate Greenaway Medal twice (in 1966 for the Mother Goose Treasury and in 1973 for Father Christmas), and the Francis Williams Illustration Award from the V&A (in 1982). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.