Author Philippa Pearce dies at 86

Children's author Philippa Pearce, who was responsible for books such as Tom's Midnight Garden, has died aged 86 after suffering a stroke.

The former BBC producer wrote her first novel, Minnow on the Say, in 1955, and her home - a Cambridgeshire mill house - inspired much of her work.

Tom's Midnight Garden, about a young boy who finds a secret Victorian garden at his uncle's home, was among them.

It sold millions of copies and was adapted for film, TV and theatre.

It also won the British Library Association's Carnegie Medal in 1958.

'Recreate everything'

Pearce once told how the idea for Minnow on the Say came while she spent a hot summer being treated for tuberculosis.

"The hospital was boring and stuffy. I thought of my home and the coolness of the river, and how lovely it would be to go in the canoe.

"I began to imagine exactly what that would be like," she said.

"I found I could recreate everything in detail, even to the feel of the twine that tied the canoe to the landing stage that my brother once made."

Tom's Midnight Garden was inspired by the sale of her family's home, which made her feel like her childhood had been "chopped off", she said.

"I began thinking of writing a story based on the house and the garden, and this feeling of things slipping away."

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