31st December 2020
Prize-winning author supports hospice through new book
An award-winning author has donated proceeds from his latest children’s book to Nottinghamshire Hospice to say ‘thank you’ for helping his family with care and support to a close family member at a critical time.
Rob Hann, of West Bridgford, Nottingham published his third children’s book, ‘The Quangle Wangle’s Back!’ before Christmas and has donated £200 through the Big Give appeal to help fund a palliative nurse for a year.
The hospice stepped in with support when Rob’s father-in-law (93) needed overnight care in his supported accommodation as his health deteriorated and he began to have regular falls.
Rob said: “We were at the end of our tether, we didn’t know what else to do. We realised my father-in-law needed more specific care then we found out about Nottinghamshire Hospice. The hospice helped me, my wife and our family at a time of great crisis when our loved one needed increasing care to help him to continue living as independently as possible for as long as possible.
“Nottinghamshire Hospice were so brilliant. They provided urgently needed overnight care from experienced nursing staff and also helped us through difficulties we encountered with different parts of the health service, particularly during the Covid-19 emergency. Their patient, calm approach at this very stressful time was invaluable and was not available anywhere else.”
Rob was so impressed with the help the family received that he chose to support the hospice. His donation through the Big Give was match-funded so raised £400.
Rob, a lawyer with Sharpe Pritchard law firm, won the Impress Prize in 2009 for his biographical novel SAS Operation Galia: Bravery Behind Enemy Lines in the Second World War – about his own (late) father’s time in the SAS in World War II. Since then he’s gone on to publish three illustrated children’s books, written in rhyme, the first of which, The GrumbleGroar, won the New Writers UK Children’s Book of the Year prize in 2012. Rob, pictured below with illustrator Howard Barton, also won a pitching competition for a project to run reading, rhyme and drawing sessions at care homes, where groups of schoolchildren will take part in the activities alongside residents.
His latest book, The Quangle Wangle’s Back!, is inspired by the life of nonsense poet Edward Lear and written as a sequel to Lear’s poem ‘The Quangle Wangle’s Hat.’
Rob said “I really want to use this new book to be a focus to help join up the elderly and the very young through reading and rhyme and to do what ever I can to support and promote the great work of the Nottinghamshire Hospice”.
Rob’s books are available from his website: or on Amazon