

Certainly the first story I ever wrote down (when I was five or six) was about a rabbit called Rabbit. She recalls that: "I can still remember me telling her a story in which she fell down a rabbit hole and was fed strawberries by the rabbit family inside it. Her headmaster at St Michael's, Alfred Dunn, has been suggested as the inspiration for the Harry Potter headmaster Albus Dumbledore.Īs a child, Rowling often wrote fantasy stories, which she would usually then read to her sister. She attended St Michael's Primary School, a school founded by abolitionist William Wilberforce and education reformer Hannah More. The family moved to the nearby village Winterbourne when Rowling was four. Rowling's sister Dianne was born at their home when Rowling was 23 months old. Her mother's paternal grandfather, Louis Volant, was awarded the Croix de Guerre for exceptional bravery in defending the village of Courcelles-le-Comte during the First World War. Her mother's maternal grandfather, Dugald Campbell, was born in Lamlash on the Isle of Arran. Her parents first met on a train departing from King's Cross Station bound for Arbroath in 1964. Her mother Anne was half-French and half-Scottish. Rowling was born to Anne Rowling (née Volant) and Peter James Rowling, a Rolls-Royce aircraft engineer, on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, England, 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Bristol. NOTE: There is more than one author with this name on Goodreads. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series and The Casual Vacancy, a novel for adults.
