David Clive King is an English author best known for his children's book Stig of the Dump.
Born in 1924 in Richmond, Surrey, he was the second of four sons. The family moved in 1926 to Oliver's Farm, Ash, Kent, on the North Downs, alongside which was an abandoned chalk-pit. His early education was at a private infants school where one of the teachers, Miss Brodie claimed to have taught Christopher Robin Milne, and introduced Clive to stories about Stone Age people. Thereafter he went to King's School, Rochester, he studied English and Russian at Downing College, Cambridge, and the School of Oriental and African Studies, London.
From 1943 to 1947 he served in the Royal Navy, voyaging to Iceland, twice to the Russian Arctic, to India, Sri Lanka, Australia, East Indies, Malaysia, and Japan, where he observed the ruins of Hiroshima within months of its destruction.
Civilian postings as an officer of the British Council took him to Amsterdam, Belfast, Aleppo, Damascus (styled as Visiting Professor to the University), Beirut, Dhaka and Madras, and gave opportunities for independent travel between these places and England.
In 1973 he became a full-time writer following the success of his best-known book Stig of the Dump, which has since been twice adapted for television.
His nineteen books include:
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