Author of the week Sir Michael Morpurgo

After going to the GP with indigestion last year, bestselling children’s author Sir Michael Morpurgo found himself undergoing a triple heart bypass – and an enforced break from writing.

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“We all have this cliche that you’ve got pains in your chest and it’s agony. Oh no, I went to my wonderful NHS doctor in Hatherleigh in Devon and I said, ‘Look I think I’m getting indigestion rather too often and it’s rather strange because it always comes in the same place between my shoulder blades’.

“Within 10 days I was having it done because it was found all three arteries were blocked and they wouldn’t let me out of hospital because it was too serious,” the 81-year-old former children’s laureate and author of War Horse recalls.

When he left hospital, he found writing difficult.

“I couldn’t really concentrate because after that my mind had gone somewhere else, but it’s gathered itself now, mostly.

“An enforced break wasn’t really good for me. It lowered my spirits not to be writing. Now, I’ve always got a project and I like that.

He and his wife Clare have three children, eight grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, with another on the way, and you get the feeling they keep him young.

“One of the reasons I love being with young people is they help me lift my head up and look upwards and forwards.”

Today, he recognises how lucky he has been and lives for the day – but there’s a lot of looking back on fond memories, he agrees.

His bestselling books, including Private Peaceful and Kensuke’s Kingdom, frequently introduce children to harder themes while familiarising them with the beauty of the natural world.