[3] His parents were Charles Strong, a pharmacist and Una, a primary school teacher and he has two brothers, Michael and Aidan and a sister, Jenny.
[1] Strong published his first book Smith's Tail, a picture story for young children in 1978.
He won the Sheffield Children's Book Award for Short Novel in 1998 for Pirate Pandemonium and then in 2001 for Living with Vampires.
The story tells of a band of animal companions who travel northwards in a topsy-turvey caravan on their quest to see the Northern Lights.
[6] Strong married his first wife Susan Noot, a teacher, in 1973 and they had two children together, Daniel and Jessica.