MAN Booker Prize shortlisted novelist Adam Foulds has told the Guardian that growing up in 'Romantic' Woodford Green helped inspire his writing.

The former Bancroft's schoolboy spent part of his youth living in Mornington Road, Woodford Green, where he said the leafy surroundings - close to Epping Forest - provided a 'Romantic world' within which he could develop his love of 19th century writers such as Keates.

The 34 year-old was nominated for the £50,000 award for his latest novel, The Quickening Maze, which was set in a former mental asylum in High Beach.

He said: "Being in Woodford Green we were in a green space and that meant that I did live in quiet a Romantic world - with a capital 'r'.

"Epping Forest has always interested me, both for its nature and its history.

"This interest grew when I found out about the other literary figures who had lived there such as Tennyson, George Herbert and of course John Clare, who is the focus of the book.

"There is quite a lot of literary association with Epping Forest and Woodford."

The Man Booker International Prize is awarded every one years.