Nina Bawden, author of Carrie's War, dies, aged 87

Nina Bawden’s husband died in the Potters Bar rail crash (Rex Features)

Nina Bawden, the celebrated children's story writer, has died at the age of 87, her publisher said.

Her son, Robert Bawden, and her publisher, Virago, said the Carrie's War author died at her home in north London, surrounded by family.

One of Bawden's last books, Dear Austen, followed the Potter's Bar rail crash in 2002, which killed her husband Austen Kark. Bawden was also badly injured in the crash.

Carrie's War, published in 1973, was based on Bawden's childhood evacuation to Wales during the war. The book was a Phoenix Award winner in 1993. Playwright Sir David Hare, who portrayed Bawden in his play The Permanent Way about the privatisation of the railways, said: "Nina was an uncomplicatedly good woman, whose long fight to obtain justice for the victims of the Potters Bar crash was a model of eloquence, principle and human decency."