About The Author John Nickson

John Nickson has been a journalist in Scotland for nearly 40 years. He lives in Angus. He and Tom Radford have published four children's books in the Hamish the Hedgehog series. They are for children between the ages of 3-9 and are selling well worldwide. John has written the books about Hamish, for his bonny grand-bairns. John came up with the idea for his books when a hedgehog started appearing on his Scottish lawn on cold mornings looking for food. He started feeding it bits of bacon fat and not surprisingly it kept returning.   

He and the hedgehog developed a bit of a relationship and the idea for Hamish was born! John was impressed with the hedgehog's independence, powers of survival in cold winters and its general laid-back attitude. Hamish just liked being fed tasty morsels and then disappearing to sleep off his snacks! 

Originally from Cheshire, John's boyhood was spent in the countryside where his Dad would to take him out on nature walks identifying birds, wild animals, plants and trees. 

He has always had a keen interest in the outdoors and loves hill-walking (has done 244 of Scotland's Munros...40 to go!), rambles around lochs, dogs, real ale, reading, writing, malt whisky, gardening, golf, rugby, football, Australia, Scotland and hedgehogs. 

He plans to write one more Hamish book making five in all.