John Cooper has worked at Leicestershire Museum, and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburg, USA, where he prepared dinosaurs himself! Roger Coote studied geography at Reading University and has written over 50 books for children. Laura Wade is a trained natural history illustrator and has also worked for the World Wildlife Fund, The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society and as a keeper for the London Zoo. Harry Ford was curator of the Mills Observatory, Dundee. He and his wife built the planetarium at the Central Museum, Southend. In 1985, he was awarded the Lorimer Gold Medal of the Astronomical Society of Edinburgh.