“I know the voice that comes through in the book wouldn’t be exactly as it is if I hadn’t first written that story for an actor’s voice,” he says. Gleitzman said it also proved useful first writing the story as a performance piece. 'To be able to see what goes on between a man like him and the horses he cares so much about was very useful when it came to writing about Frank and Daisy.” “To be able to work with David, to get up close and get a sense of the physicality of horses, was an unexpected bonus,' he says. To better understand the relationship, Gleitzman did extensive research, accessing the files of the Australian War Memorial, but also spending time with men such as David “Buffalo” O’Brien, a horseman from Dundurrabin in the northern tablelands of NSW, a man who catches and trains wild brumbies. So even though it was an adventure and the only opportunity that most of them would have to go across the world and see faraway places, they were a long way from home and their horses became their only tangible connection to home.” “A lot of those blokes, many of them quite young, volunteered and took their own horses with them. I read in memoirs and letters from service people in that war how special those relationships were. “We know how that can be with pets but it gives it an extra dimension when lives are at stake. “I was initially interested in the notion of how important, in a tough situation like a war, a relationship with an animal can be for a person,” Gleitzman says. Gleitzman wanted to tell that tragic story, of the loyal creatures, man and animal who served, and how they connected. Only one of those horses came back to Australia.

The pair find themselves in Egypt, Gallipoli and Beersheeba, their story unfolding as World War I changes the life of so many young men.Īustralia sent about 150,000 horses over to World War I, mostly to Egypt and Palestine with the Australian Light Horse.

It’s the story of 16-year-old Frank Ballantyne, who, like so many of his young mates, dreams of grand adventure and volunteers for the Australian Light Horse with his horse Daisy. Gleitzman became so fascinated by the story behind War Horse, by the relationships between man and animal, and by the animals themselves, that now, two years down the track, he has developed that initial 20-minute monologue into a book of his own, Loyal Creatures. Michael Morpurgo, the author of the book War Horse, on which the stage version, and the subsequent Steven Spielberg film is based, suggested children’s author Morris Gleitzman, who had written a series of books about children in World War II, set against the Holocaust, and Gleitzman jumped at the chance. Acclaimed: Children's author Morris Gleitzman.

Loyal creatures book