Tom Sharpe

**Thomas Ridley Sharpe**  was an English satirical novelist, best known for his *Wilt* series, as well as *Porterhouse Blue* and *Blott on the Landscape,* which were both adapted for television.

Born in 1928, Sharpe graduated from Pembroke College, Cambridge, moved to South Africa for ten years and was then deported for sedition for speaking out against apartheid. He returned to England to lecture before spending time between the UK and Spain, writing a series of novels. He died in 2013 from complications of diabetes. His ashes were interred in the graveyard at the remote church in Thockrington, Northumberland, where his father had been a preacher.

## Life

Sharpe was born in Croydon (or Holloway and brought up in Croydon). Sharpe's father, the Reverend George Coverdale Sharpe, was a Unitarian minister who was active in far-right politics in the 1930s. He was chairman of the Acton and Ealing branch of The Link, and a member of the Nordic League. He declared that he hated Jews "in the sense that he hated all corruption". Sharpe initially shared some of his father's views, but was horrified on seeing films of the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

Sharpe was educated at Bloxham School, on which he based Groxbourne in *Vintage Stuff*, followed by Lancing College. He then did National Service in the Royal Marines before going to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he studied history and social anthropology.

Sharpe moved to South Africa in 1951, where he worked as a social worker and a teacher, before being deported for sedition in 1961. His time in South Africa inspired his novels *Riotous Assembly* and *Indecent Exposure*, in which he mocked the apartheid regime. He also wrote a play, *The South African*, which was critical of the regime. After it was performed in London Sharpe was arrested and deported from South Africa.

After returning to England Sharpe took a position as a history lecturer at the Cambridge College of Arts and Technology, later Anglia Ruskin University. This experience inspired his *Wilt* series in which he derides popular English culture. From 1995 he and his American wife Nancy divided their time between Cambridge and their home in Llafranc, Spain, where he wrote *Wilt in Nowhere*. The couple had three daughters. Despite living in Catalonia he did not learn either Spanish or Catalan. "I don't want to learn the language," he said. "I don't want to hear what the price of meat is."

Sharpe died on 6 June 2013 in Llafranc from complications of diabetes. He was 85. He was reported to have been working on an autobiography. He had also been reported to have suffered a stroke a few weeks before his death. Paying tribute, the author Robert McCrum wrote "The Tom Sharpe I knew was generous, acerbic, engaging, and full of wicked fun." Susan Sandon. Sharpe's editor at Random House, remarked that he was "witty, often outrageous, always acutely funny about the absurdities of life".

# Sources

1. ↑ Tom Sharpe, Porterhouse Blue novelist, dies aged 85 BBC (6 June 2013)
2. ↑ " Ashes of writer Tom Sharpe buried at ceremony in remote Northumberland church yard";*The Journal* 3 June 2014
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Tom Sharpe obituary - The Guardian (6 June 2013)
4. ↑ Tom Sharpe Obituary - The Daily Telegraph (6 June 2013)
5. ↑ Richard Griffiths, *Patriotism Perverted*, Constable, 1998, pp. 40-41, citing TNA HO 144/21379/277.
6. ↑ Tom Sharpe: Comic novelist and satirist who created the Wilt series and Porterhouse Blue - The Independent(6 June 2013)
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 An audience with Tom Sharpe - Cambridge Evening News article by Paul Kirkley (9 June 2013)
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 The Atlantic Companion to Literature in English by Ray Mohit. Atlantic Publishers & Distributors. September 2007. Page 473. ISBN 978-81-269-0832-5
9. ↑ Tom Sharpe - Author Spotlight. Random House
10. ↑ South Africa Ousting Author - The New York Times article (9 November 1961)
11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 BBC Obituary: Tom Sharpe (6 June 2013)
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Why Tom Sharpe left Cambridge for Catalonia (October 2004)
13. ↑ Wilt Author Tom Sharpe Dies In Spain Aged 85 - Sky News (6 June 2013
14. ↑ Tom Sharpe: a relentless writer - The Guardian article (6 June 2013) by Peter Preston
15. ↑ Tom Sharpe remembered - The Guardian article (6 June 2013) by Robert McCrum
16. ↑ Tom Sharpe, author of Blott On The Landscape, dies at 85 - Daily Express article (7 June 2013) by Elisa Roche