Tom Sharpe
Thomas Ridley Sharpe (30 March 1928 – 6 June 2013) 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 in Croydon, 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.