- Born
- Died
- Birth nameJohn Arthur Cunliffe
- Height6′ (1.83 m)
- John Cunliffe worked for many years as a librarian and a teacher and is now a full-time writer. He has always had an interest in reading, stating that when he was a child he enjoyed the novels of writers such as H. Rider Haggard, Sax Rohmer, Norman Hunter's Professor Branestawm stories and W. E. Johns's Biggles books.
His first book, Farmer Barnes Buys a Pig, was published in 1964. Cunliffe lived in Kendal, Cumbria for six years, and it was the small towns and villages of that area which would provide the inspiration for his most famous character - Postman Pat. Greendale, where Postman Pat is set, is based on the valley of Longsleddale, near Kendal. After the success of the TV series, which he wrote as the result of a commission from the BBC, (produced by Ivor Wood) which debuted in 1981, Cunliffe became something of a local celebrity, even having a room dedicated to him at Kendal's Museum of Lakeland Life.
Cunliffe's other well-known creation, Rosie and Jim, was also written for television in the 1990s. He scripted and presented the first fifty episodes, then turned some of them into books. He is the author of around 190 books for young children, including five volumes of poetry, as well as numerous picture books and collections of stories.
He has also written a stage play, The Twelve Days of Christmas, which was presented by the Hull Truck Theatre Company during their 1997 season. He is currently working on scripts and books for new Postman Pat series, which are in production with Entertainment Rights Ltd. In 2010 he released "Ghosts", a children's story for the iPad, through the Ashley Bolser Agency in Leeds.
- IMDb mini biography by: estephen980
- SpouseSylvia Thompson(1960 - September 20, 2018) (his death, 1 child)
- Ilkley, West Yorkshire.
- Cunliffe was bullied at school as a child, due to being tall for his age and he wrote stories for the pleasure of writing. His Uncle Herbert first introduced him to books, and this sparked a lifelong interest in reading.
- He based Greendale, the fictional town where Postman Pat is set, on the real-life village of Longsleddale in Cumbria. Some of the characters were based on people he knew.
- He created the characters of Rosie & Jim so that he would have a TV series which he could have more control over, as following the success of Postman Pat on television, many stories and tie-in merchandise was released without his approval.
- Both Rebecca Nagan and Robin Stevens have said that he retired from presenting Rosie and Jim after series 2 because he found filming and the hours that came with it too challenging so he went back to writing and author Pat Hutchins took over the presenting role of Rosie and Jim.
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