Brian Jacques

Did You Know?

• In June 2005, Jacques was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters by the University of Liverpool.
• A prize called the 'Brian Jacques Award for Most Improved Creative Writing' was created at Bristol Grammar School, awarded to a Year 8 student as book tokens.
• Jacques' maternal grandfather, Matthew Ryan, was from Wexford, Ireland.

Early life

Brian Jacques was born in Liverpool on 15 June 1939 to James Alfred Jacques, a truck driver, and Ellen Ryan. His father's family came from Lancashire, while his mother's family had Irish roots, with his maternal grandfather from Wexford, Ireland. He was the middle child, with an older brother Tony and a younger brother James. Growing up in Kirkdale near the Liverpool Docks, he was called Brian to avoid confusion with his father and younger brother. His father read adventure stories and The Wind in the Willows to the boys. At age ten, Jacques wrote an animal story about a bird cleaning a crocodile's teeth; his teacher caned him for refusing to admit copying it. He attended St John's Roman Catholic school, where teacher Austin Thomas introduced him to poetry and Greek literature, inspiring him to buy The Iliad and The Odyssey.

Career

Jacques left school at fifteen to become a merchant sailor. After returning to Liverpool, he worked as a railway fireman, longshoreman, long-distance truck driver, bus driver, postmaster, and stand-up entertainer, while continuing to read and write. He published humorous poems and short stories through the 1970s, and in 1981 won a long-term residency at the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool, where his plays Brown Bitter, Wet Nellies and Scouse were performed. In the 1980s, while working as a milkman on a round including the Royal Wavertree School for the Blind, he volunteered to read to blind children. Dissatisfied with children's literature, he wrote stories for them using a highly descriptive style emphasizing senses other than sight. From these sessions emerged Redwall, an 800-page handwritten manuscript. Jacques gave the manuscript to Alan Durband, a friend from the Everyman Theatre and an English teacher. Durband showed it to his publisher without telling Jacques, reportedly calling it the finest children's tale he had read. Jacques was summoned to London and given a contract for the next five books. Redwall was unusual for its length, as children's books at the time were thought to hold attention only up to 200 pages. The series centers on good creatures like mice and badgers defeating evil ones like rats and weasels, with Jacques not avoiding the reality of battle.

Personal life

Jacques and his wife Maureen made their home in Liverpool, raising two sons: Marc, who worked as a carpenter and bricklayer, and David, a muralist and contemporary artist. A man with musical leanings, he started a folk band called the Liverpool Fishermen alongside two of his brothers during the 1960s. Later, from 1986 to 2006, he presented Jakestown on BBC Radio Merseyside, a show built around his preferred operatic pieces. Following emergency surgery for an aortic aneurysm, Jacques suffered a fatal heart attack on 5 February 2011 at age 71.