Eyes on the sky

Hiawyn studied English and Drama in South Africa and worked as an advertising copywriter before becoming a full-time author. Since then, she’s had nearly 100 children’s books published in many languages across the world including picture books, poetry, plays, young fiction and story collections. The well-known TV series Mona the Vampire is based on her books with Sonia Holleyman. She’s also written the scripts and lyrics for two family musicals The Vackees and The Mermaid with music by Carl Davis.

Children’s TV includes development and scripts for the animated series, Sheep, Marvellous Milly, Wilf the Witch’s Dog and Big Cat, Little Cat. Her latest series of books, The Rumblewick Letters and Diaries, is about a cat with a witch called Haggy Aggy and a giant problem. All Haggy Aggy wants to do is shop, watch telly, wear pink, go to ballet school, start a girl band, become a celebrity chef and/or marry a handsome prince. And while she’s being anything and everything but a witch, who gets the blame? He does, of course, and all he can say is ‘Socks, socks, tadpoles in socks’ and ‘Why me?’

Prizes and awards include the Japanese Picture Book Award for Angry Arthur; the French Prix du Livre Interculturel for Just Like Us; the Experian Big 3 (6-8) for Just Dog; the UK Smarties shortlist for The Second Princess and the Red House shortlist for Mr Strongmouse and the Baby. Big Cat, Little Cat won the Tokyo Children’s Film Festival Award for Best Short Animated Film in 2002.

Hiawyn lives in London – without her now grown-up sons.

A list of work can be found here.

Hiawyn on writing the Sing Up Musical:

“I was so pleased to be asked to work on this show because, of all the things I do, writing musicals is my favourite. However, the theme ‘great inventions through history’ was challenging as it needed to be covered by only five songs. Where would I start?  With the wheel, obviously, but then ...? There have been so many ingenious inventions down the ages; how could I choose the next four to sing about? In the end my research gave me the solution. The more I looked into it, the more I found that almost none of the so-called ‘great inventors’ had worked alone. They’d stood on the shoulders of others before them. And that’s where the basic idea behind the musical came from, namely, a group of inventors, some famous and some not so famous, arguing amongst themselves about who did what and when and whose work has contributed most to the way we live. Having a group of 21st-century children help settle the argument seemed the natural conclusion!”

Sheila Wilson wrote her first musical, Hosanna Rock!, in 1990; it was published in 1993 and quickly became a best-seller. She now has over forty titles with new ones published each year, and her music is performed enthusiastically by thousands of schools each year. Her publishers include Novello, Golden Apple, Faber Music and her own Company, Redhead Music. 

Her music has often been performed on television and radio, as well as at the Royal Albert Hall and many Cathedrals. Schools in Australia, South Africa, Japan, the Caribbean, Canada and the USA have also joined in the fun. Sheila’s trademark style is a combination of catchy rock and roll and blues songs (often with actions or hand-jives),

mixed with heart-achingly gentle songs, usually on a Biblical theme.

For more details about Sheila Wilson, composer and publisher, please visit her website.

THE SING UP MUSICAL

Book and lyrics by Hiawyn Oram

Music by Kate Courage, Lin Marsh, Simon Rogers, Sarah Watts and Sheila Wilson

Title chosen by Rosemary Taylor-Mew and the Sing Up Club at St John’s CoE First and Middle School, Harrow.

The musical is all about the fantastic inventions that we use every day. Which gadget could you not live without? The phone? The computer? Paper? Take a journey with some great inventors as they visit a school and discuss the machines and mechanisms that have changed our world.

Audio information

The audio tracks were recorded specially for the Sing Up programme by the children's choir provided by Jam Theatre Company, mixed and mastered by Ron Knights. The backing track was specially created by Ned Bennett.

Copyright information

All copyright music in the Sing Up programme is used by permission. The songwriters and/or copyright holders have been remunerated under due licensing arrangements. Find out more about copyright by visiting the UK Music and Sound Rights websites.