Allan Ahlberg, the beloved children’s author, has died aged 87.
Working with his wife Janet, an illustrator, Ahlberg wrote best-selling children’s classics including Cops and Robbers, Burglar Bill, Peepo! and Each Peach Pear Plum. After Janet died in 1994, Ahlberg collaborated with illustrators including Raymond Briggs, Bruce Ingman and his daughter Jessica.
Belinda Ioni Rasmussen, president and publisher at Walker Books Group, told The Guardian: “He was enormously playful in spirit and language and had the ability to make you smile in one sentence. Allan inspired generations of children’s writers, inspired all of us who worked with him, and inspired artists to make some of their very best work.”
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Born in 1938, Ahlberg was adopted by a family in Oldbury, West Midlands. After grammar school and national service, he worked as a postman and gravedigger before training as a teacher. He met Janet at their teacher training college in Sunderland.
The couple married in 1969 and settled near Leicester, where Ahlberg taught in a primary school. He made his debut as a children’s author in 1976 with The Old Joke Book. The following year, he published The Vanishment of Thomas Tull and Burglar Bill.
Perhaps Ahlberg’s most famous book was Each Peach Pear Plum, written for younger readers. He revisited his childhood with Peepo! which narrated a day in the life of a baby in a working-class family during the Second World War.