Colin Dexter
|
Award-winning crime author and cruciverbalist Colin Dexter OBE may be associated with Oxford, but he was a Stamfordian, who never forgot his roots. Colin was a writer of great style and intelligence with wide interests. He was responsible for the creation of one of the most enduring figures of modern popular fiction. His ‘Inspector Morse’ crime novels were adapted for television – he had cameo roles in some of the episodes. Such was the stories’ appeal that there were TV spin-offs ‘Lewis’ and ‘Endeavour’.
Norman Colin Dexter was born on 29 September 1930 at 17 Scotgate, Stamford, where his elder brother and younger sister were also born. His parents, 43 year old Alfred and 27 year old Dorothy May Dexter (née Towns) moved in 1928 from Whissendine to the modest terraced house. Alfred was a motor driver for Harry Louis Simpson, a garage owner at 53 Scotgate. In 1938, the family moved across the road to 53-56 Scotgate, when Alfred took over the garage and taxi hire business. Neither homes exist now. |
|
Aged 5, Colin went to St John’s Infants School and two years later, to the then nearby Bluecoat School. In ‘Endeavour’ Series 8, ‘Terminus,’ a photograph of Colin at Bluecoat School is used as a ‘nod’. A scholarship took him to Stamford School where he made the most of his opportunities.
Colin’s first published venture was in the 1948 edition of ‘Miscellany,’ for which he wrote a scholarly essay on Thomas Hardy’s poetry, helped by informal lessons and advice from editor Hugh Sharp, Senior English Master. The 1949 publication contained a critique of poetry styles, and an original poem by Colin. The plot of Colin’s tenth novel, the 1992 Gold Dagger Award winner ‘The Way Through the Woods’ owes much to his Hardy knowledge. From his schooldays, Colin developed a passion for A.E.Housman……so much so that the title of his last novel ‘The Remorseful Day’ comes from Housman’s poem ‘How Clear, How Lovely Bright’.
Colin ran the school drama club at one period, and was active in the local drama club ‘The Stamford Young Players’. He absorbed much of his early appreciation of music from brother John. However it was virtually a bookless home. He was an enthusiastic player and supporter of such
sports as cricket and rugby.
In 1948, Colin took the Cambridge Entrance Examination and was accepted to read English. He really wanted to study Classics, so he asked the university authorities if he could take that instead, and luckily, they agreed.
First he spent eighteen months in the Royal Signals Regiment doing his National Service, and became a high-speed Morse code operator, serving most of the time from 1948 to 1950 in West Germany.
Colin graduated in 1953, from Christ’s College, Cambridge, receiving an honorary master's degree in 1958. His first appointment was as an assistant Classics master at Wyggeston Grammar School, Leicester. In 1957 he moved to Loughborough Grammar School, followed by the position of senior Classics teacher at the co-ed Corby Grammar School in 1959.
Having married Dorothy Cooper in 1956, he set up home in Cottingham, Northamptonshire. By 1962, they had two small children, Sally and Jeremy.
Colin insisted that each of the first-year sixth forms had to do a year of Latin; and, pioneering liberal studies, he always made a point of emphasising the need to blend science and humanities in school education.
While at Corby, he collaborated with his friend, senior history master Ed Rayner from Wyggeston School on two books on liberal studies, aimed at students in 6th form or first years of further education, in an attempt to stimulate discussion. The books were published in 1964 and 1965.
In 1966, he was forced by ill-health and worsening deafness to retire from teaching and took up the post of senior assistant secretary, overseeing Classics and English, at the University of Oxford Delegacy of Local Examinations (UODLE) in Summertown Oxford, a job he held until his early retirement in 1988.
His hobby of solving crosswords possibly began at Cambridge. His love of words and literary allusions led to entries to the Observer newspaper’s cryptic clues competition, set by Ximenes [Derrick Somerset Macnutt]. The first mention of N.C.Dexter’s name was in February 1957, and the last one in December 2012, when health problems and poor sight meant he couldn’t continue. That was an astonishing run of 55 years 10 months! He set crosswords for various outlets, one being the Oxford Mail, under the pseudonym Codex [Co(lin) Dex(ter)]. At Corby Grammar, French master Ted Kimmons and Colin vied with one another to see who could complete The Times crossword first!
In 1972 while on a family holiday in Trefor, Wales, Colin started to scribble a few pages of what would turn out to be his first of thirteen crime novels. This was published in1975. The Morse novels can be viewed as a celebration of thinking like a crossword solver.
Chief Inspector Morse, was named after his friend “the cleverest man I ever knew,” Sir Jeremy Morse, a former chairman of Lloyds Bank, President of the International Monetary Fund, and fellow crossword enthusiast. Morse Code has nothing to do with the choice of name. In fact the character names in ‘Last Bus to Woodstock’ are based on those of fellow Ximenean/Azed prize winners!
His novels and short stories hide, often in plain sight, references to friends and acquaintances, places he knew, a love of real ale, and accurate grammar.
There are Stamford mentions in the books, but the name of Max de Bryn has surprising local connections. At first the pathologist is nameless, but the books give an accurate description of John Poole, Colin’s Oxford pathology friend. Then he became Max, an abbreviation of the surname of Oliver Maxim, the Dexter family’s Corby doctor and friend. In ‘The Way Through the Woods,’ Max dies and his full name is revealed as Maximilian Theodore Siegfried de Bryn. Theodore, meaning ‘gift of god,’ references Classical Greek, and Siegfried is a nod to Colin’s growing passion for Wagner. South African-born Robert Saunders de Bruyn was in general practice and surgeon at Stamford Infirmary from 1939. Alfred Dexter ferried him about the villages in his taxi. The pronunciation of the name became the character’s surname de Bryn. By a quirk of fate, the grandmother of Stamford-born actor James Bradshaw who plays the TV role in ‘Endeavour,’ was operated on by R. S. de Bruyn.
On retiring in 1956, Colin’s parents lived at Milverton House, 6 Empingham Road, Stamford, the former home of a relative of Helpston’s poet John Clare, whose works Colin admired. Alfred died in 1964, never knowing about Colin’s success. In 1976, when Colin’s second book, ‘Last Seen Wearing’ was published, to critical acclaim, Mrs. Dexter stated her only regret was her husband did not live to see Colin’s success. They were proud of all their children.
In 1997 he was presented with the Crime Writers’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for outstanding services to crime literature. In 2001 he was awarded the Freedom of the City of Oxford. In September 2011, the University of Lincoln awarded him an honorary Doctor of Letters degree. Colin Dexter died on 21st March 2017 in Oxford.
2022 saw another accolade, a blue plaque in his home town to celebrate all that this modest self-effacing man had achieved.
© Barbara Midgley
13 January 2023
Colin’s first published venture was in the 1948 edition of ‘Miscellany,’ for which he wrote a scholarly essay on Thomas Hardy’s poetry, helped by informal lessons and advice from editor Hugh Sharp, Senior English Master. The 1949 publication contained a critique of poetry styles, and an original poem by Colin. The plot of Colin’s tenth novel, the 1992 Gold Dagger Award winner ‘The Way Through the Woods’ owes much to his Hardy knowledge. From his schooldays, Colin developed a passion for A.E.Housman……so much so that the title of his last novel ‘The Remorseful Day’ comes from Housman’s poem ‘How Clear, How Lovely Bright’.
Colin ran the school drama club at one period, and was active in the local drama club ‘The Stamford Young Players’. He absorbed much of his early appreciation of music from brother John. However it was virtually a bookless home. He was an enthusiastic player and supporter of such
sports as cricket and rugby.
In 1948, Colin took the Cambridge Entrance Examination and was accepted to read English. He really wanted to study Classics, so he asked the university authorities if he could take that instead, and luckily, they agreed.
First he spent eighteen months in the Royal Signals Regiment doing his National Service, and became a high-speed Morse code operator, serving most of the time from 1948 to 1950 in West Germany.
Colin graduated in 1953, from Christ’s College, Cambridge, receiving an honorary master's degree in 1958. His first appointment was as an assistant Classics master at Wyggeston Grammar School, Leicester. In 1957 he moved to Loughborough Grammar School, followed by the position of senior Classics teacher at the co-ed Corby Grammar School in 1959.
Having married Dorothy Cooper in 1956, he set up home in Cottingham, Northamptonshire. By 1962, they had two small children, Sally and Jeremy.
Colin insisted that each of the first-year sixth forms had to do a year of Latin; and, pioneering liberal studies, he always made a point of emphasising the need to blend science and humanities in school education.
While at Corby, he collaborated with his friend, senior history master Ed Rayner from Wyggeston School on two books on liberal studies, aimed at students in 6th form or first years of further education, in an attempt to stimulate discussion. The books were published in 1964 and 1965.
In 1966, he was forced by ill-health and worsening deafness to retire from teaching and took up the post of senior assistant secretary, overseeing Classics and English, at the University of Oxford Delegacy of Local Examinations (UODLE) in Summertown Oxford, a job he held until his early retirement in 1988.
His hobby of solving crosswords possibly began at Cambridge. His love of words and literary allusions led to entries to the Observer newspaper’s cryptic clues competition, set by Ximenes [Derrick Somerset Macnutt]. The first mention of N.C.Dexter’s name was in February 1957, and the last one in December 2012, when health problems and poor sight meant he couldn’t continue. That was an astonishing run of 55 years 10 months! He set crosswords for various outlets, one being the Oxford Mail, under the pseudonym Codex [Co(lin) Dex(ter)]. At Corby Grammar, French master Ted Kimmons and Colin vied with one another to see who could complete The Times crossword first!
In 1972 while on a family holiday in Trefor, Wales, Colin started to scribble a few pages of what would turn out to be his first of thirteen crime novels. This was published in1975. The Morse novels can be viewed as a celebration of thinking like a crossword solver.
Chief Inspector Morse, was named after his friend “the cleverest man I ever knew,” Sir Jeremy Morse, a former chairman of Lloyds Bank, President of the International Monetary Fund, and fellow crossword enthusiast. Morse Code has nothing to do with the choice of name. In fact the character names in ‘Last Bus to Woodstock’ are based on those of fellow Ximenean/Azed prize winners!
His novels and short stories hide, often in plain sight, references to friends and acquaintances, places he knew, a love of real ale, and accurate grammar.
There are Stamford mentions in the books, but the name of Max de Bryn has surprising local connections. At first the pathologist is nameless, but the books give an accurate description of John Poole, Colin’s Oxford pathology friend. Then he became Max, an abbreviation of the surname of Oliver Maxim, the Dexter family’s Corby doctor and friend. In ‘The Way Through the Woods,’ Max dies and his full name is revealed as Maximilian Theodore Siegfried de Bryn. Theodore, meaning ‘gift of god,’ references Classical Greek, and Siegfried is a nod to Colin’s growing passion for Wagner. South African-born Robert Saunders de Bruyn was in general practice and surgeon at Stamford Infirmary from 1939. Alfred Dexter ferried him about the villages in his taxi. The pronunciation of the name became the character’s surname de Bryn. By a quirk of fate, the grandmother of Stamford-born actor James Bradshaw who plays the TV role in ‘Endeavour,’ was operated on by R. S. de Bruyn.
On retiring in 1956, Colin’s parents lived at Milverton House, 6 Empingham Road, Stamford, the former home of a relative of Helpston’s poet John Clare, whose works Colin admired. Alfred died in 1964, never knowing about Colin’s success. In 1976, when Colin’s second book, ‘Last Seen Wearing’ was published, to critical acclaim, Mrs. Dexter stated her only regret was her husband did not live to see Colin’s success. They were proud of all their children.
In 1997 he was presented with the Crime Writers’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for outstanding services to crime literature. In 2001 he was awarded the Freedom of the City of Oxford. In September 2011, the University of Lincoln awarded him an honorary Doctor of Letters degree. Colin Dexter died on 21st March 2017 in Oxford.
2022 saw another accolade, a blue plaque in his home town to celebrate all that this modest self-effacing man had achieved.
© Barbara Midgley
13 January 2023
