My partner, Bob Cattell, who has died aged 74, was the author of the Glory Gardens series of children’s books. He also founded and ran the Bookboat, a children’s bookshop moored by Greenwich pier in the 1970s and 80s.
In the mid-70s, while working in PR and advertising in London after graduating, Bob and a friend, Chris Moore, found a traditional Humber Keel barge in Rotherhithe. After two years of weekends and evenings labouring on the conversion, they sailed across the Thames from a slipway on the Isle of Dogs and moored alongside the Cutty Sark in Greenwich.
The Bookboat opened in August 1978 and proved hugely popular, with several successful book fairs and other events run alongside. A couple of years later, now sole owner of the Bookboat, Bob converted a Routemaster bus into the Bookbus, which operated as an educational charity in south-east London, taking books, authors and illustrators into schools and running holiday reading programmes. Bob eventually sold the Bookboat in 1986 – and the Bookbus in 1990 – after which he concentrated on writing.
Glory Gardens was conceived to address the dearth of cricket books for children. The first two stories – Glory in the Cup and Bound for Glory – appeared in 1995, the series eventually running to nine volumes. The books follow the doughty team of characters through thrilling games, backed up with score cards and glossary to satisfy the most obsessive of cricket lovers.
Bob was born in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, to Hilda (nee Hubbard), a primary school teacher, and Roy Cattell, a manager for English Brothers, a timber merchants, and went to Wisbech grammar school before studying French at Durham University.
After Glory Gardens, Bob went on to publish other children’s titles including the Butter-Finger trilogy (2006-10) with the poet John Agard, Bowl like the Devil (2012) and, with David Ross, the football series Strikers (1999 and 2000). Later came First XI (2015) and Second XI (2018), two collections of short stories for adults set in cricket-playing countries around the world.
Recent ventures with the illustrator Michael Woods resulted in Reynard the Fox, a new translation of the medieval fable, and Agon, a selection of Greek myths.
While freelance copywriting provided his income for many years, Bob’s heart and much of his time were engaged in less lucrative projects. He gave his energy to such charities as Friends of the Earth, Book Trust and Chance to Shine and was for many years an active school governor in Tower Hamlets. He was always ready with practical help and advice to would-be authors.
Bob was a voracious reader, avid traveller, generous host, controversial conversationalist and consistent friend. From 2000 he made his base a cottage in east Suffolk.
I shared Bob’s life for nearly 50 years, collaborating on adventures, not least a three-month walk to Santiago de Compostela 30 years ago and several trekking trips to the mountains of Pakistan, where we made lifelong friends.
I survive him, as does his younger brother Paul.
