Henry Chancellor was born in London and grew up in East Anglia. When not riding his pony across the muddy fields he was forever inventing stories for his long suffering pets to take part in. After school he attended Cambridge University, where he read Theology, Architecture and Art History, but spent most of his time building stage sets. >From there he went on to The Royal College of Art, where he drew many peculiar animations and made short films of questionable merit. Somehow he won a competition to make a film about the secret world of van drivers in London, and since then he has spent many years making documentaries for television. He has made films about tomb raiders, artists, pirates, spies, escapers, tea merchants, mercenaries, Japanese courtiers and African bushmen. He has also written two history books. One about a group of young men who found ingenious ways to escape from a castle during the second world war (Colditz: The Definitive History), the other about the origins of James Bond (James Bond : the Man and his World). He has always wanted to write books for children, and this is his first. He lives in Suffolk, England, with his wife Chloe and three children, two cats, several fish and a scorpion.