17 Facts About 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, all three of which were adapted for television.

Tom Sharpe was born in Holloway, London, and brought up in Croydon.

Tom Sharpe's father, the Reverend George Coverdale Tom Sharpe, was a Unitarian minister who was active in far-right politics in the 1930s.

Tom Sharpe was chairman of the Acton and Ealing branch of The Link, and a member of the Nordic League.

Tom Sharpe declared that he hated Jews "in the sense that he hated all corruption".

Tom Sharpe initially shared some of his father's views, but was horrified on seeing films of the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

Tom Sharpe was educated at Bloxham School, on which he based Groxbourne in Vintage Stuff, followed by Lancing College.

Tom Sharpe then did national service in the Royal Marines before being admitted to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he read history and social anthropology.

Tom Sharpe moved to South Africa in 1951, where he worked as a social worker and a teacher.

Tom Sharpe was friendly with the activist and artist Harold Strachan until they fell out over a woman.

Tom Sharpe wrote a play, The South African, which was critical of the regime.

Tom Sharpe died on 6 June 2013 in Llafranc from complications of diabetes at the age of 85.

Tom Sharpe was reported to have been working on an autobiography.

Tom Sharpe's ashes were interred in the graveyard at the remote church in Thockrington, Northumberland, where his father had been a preacher.

Wilt is a victim of our times, and Tom Sharpe doesn't seem to like them much.

Tom Sharpe sent up the class-conscious English writer Dornford Yates in Indecent Exposure.

Tom Sharpe worked on an adaptation of Yates' thriller She Fell Among Thieves for the BBC in 1977, which contained similar elements of parody.