Image copyright Rex Features

Once upon a time there was a middle-aged civil servant who told his children a story about rabbits.

The tale, designed to while away a long car journey, turned into a best-seller.

Yet Richard Adams, who has died aged 96, spent his first 52 years in relative anonymity.

And when he did complete his book, he struggled to find anyone to publish it.

Richard George Adams was born on 9 May 1920, in Newbury, Berkshire.

He was the son of a country doctor and was brought up in the rolling countryside with views towards the real Watership Down, on the Hampshire border.

One of his earliest memories was seeing a local man pushing a handcart full of dead rabbits down the street.

"It made me realise, in an instant, that rabbits werethings and that it was only in a baby's world that they were not."

Boarding school

He suffered the fate of many middle-class boys of the period when he was sent to boarding school at the age of nine, where, by all accounts, he had a miserable time.

He won a scholarship to Worcester College, Oxford, but his education was interrupted by World War Two and he served for five years in the Army before returning to his studies.

He joined the civil service and spent part of his career managing the clean air programme designed to reduce pollution, especially that caused by the many coal fires still burning in British households.

The event that changed his life occurred on a car journey with his family to see Twelfth Night at Stratford-upon-Avon.

His bored