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On \\u2018Profile\\u2019 this week - one of Britain\\u2019s most celebrated storytellers.

Michael Morpurgo has written 180 books over the past half century.

Over Christmas, he narrated a new BBC TV film adaptation of his 2014 children\\u2019s story \\u2018Mimi And The Mountain Dragon\\u2019.

Morpurgo is best known for \\u2018War Horse\\u2019 - a book about a horse bought by the British army to serve in the First World War and its young owner\\u2019s attempts to bring it home to safety.

Turned into a National Theatre play, then a Hollywood movie \\u2013 it\\u2019s made him a household name.

Mark Coles hears from Morpurgo\\u2019s wife, brother, biographer and close friends talk about what inspired his writing - the profound impact war had on him as a child and the father he didn\\u2019t know for years.

We hear about his time in the army, the charity he set up to give city children experience of the countryside \\u2013 and why now in his mid 70s, he\\u2019s taken up his love of singing again.

Producer Smita Patel \\nEditor Penny Murphy

The programme contains music from the BBC TV Film, "Mimi & the Mountain Dragon", composed by Rachel Portman