It was here that he met his future collaborator on the Tunnels series of books, Brian Williams, who was at the Slade School of Fine Art.

[1] After an unsuccessful attempt to transfer to medical school to train as a doctor, Roderick had graduated from University College London in 1983 without any idea of what career he wanted to follow.

They both found the process so rewarding that they decided they would continue the collaboration, and embarked on a book for younger readers, an idea first suggested by Roderick's wife, Sophie.

After a period of editing, he republished The Highfield Mole in July 2007, renaming the book as Tunnels to reflect the fact that it had been subject to a degree of change.

After intense media interest around its launch, Tunnels was a huge success, and has now been published in forty countries, achieving sales of more than a million copies worldwide.

Shortly after publication, the film rights were purchased by the US production company Relativity Media in a deal worth more than $1m.