Sebastian Faulks' children attached a huge banner to the outside of his home this morning, saying: "It's okay, dad, we still love you even if Birdsong wasn't good enough to be made into a proper film".
William Faulks said: "We're very proud to see this brilliant adaptation of a brilliant book, even if it's obviously not quite brilliant enough to have made it as a cinema film."
He said that he and his siblings Arthur and Holly had been bullied in their places of work and study "by small-minded people who don't realise that a two-part adaptation on BBC1 is really a very good achievement indeed".
Faulks' children made the banner following what sources say was an "awkward atmosphere" hanging over the family household on Sunday night, when the first episode of the BBC series was screened.
Faulks himself was reportedly heard to mutter "if it's not by Richard bloody Curtis, nobody wants to stump up the finance" and "if I hear anyone mention f****** War Horse again, I'll chin them".
Just after transmission, fellow superstar Brit author Ian McEwan (whose WW2 novel Atonement was made into a highly successful film) wrote on Sebastian Faulks' Facebook wall: "Not bad, Faulksy... for TV! LMAO".
McEwan is rumoured to have spent much of the last 12 years phoning up Faulks in a variety of accents, pretending to be film producers who are interested in making a big screen version of the popular book.
"Dad falls for it every time, it's very sad," admitted William Faulks.
The show of support by Faulks' children comes on a day when there was more bad news for the writer. Birdsong topped a poll of 100 book adaptations that Britons were pleased they did not have to go to the cinema to see.
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