In 2004, Mayne was charged with eleven counts of indecent assaults of "young girl fans" aged between eight and sixteen.
He wrote more than a hundred books, including the Choir School quartet, comprising A Swarm in May, Choristers' Cake, Cathedral Wednesday and Words and Music (1955–1963); and the Earthfasts trilogy, an unusual evocation of the King Arthur legend, comprising Earthfasts, Cradlefasts and Candlefasts (1966–2000).
For A Grass Rope he won the 1957 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British subject.
[7] He was also a commended runner up for the Medal five times – twice in competition with himself – for A Swarm in May (1955), Choristers' Cake (1956), Member for the Marsh (1956), Blue Boat (1957), and Ravensgill (1970).
[13] The Guardian Children's Book Editor Julia Eccleshare calls him "one of the most highly regarded writers" and influential although "sometimes thought of as inaccessible for his young readers".