FRIENDS MOURN A PRIVATE MAN WHO LOVED WILTSHIRE
(February 28, 2002) - MALMESBURY actor James Grout, who appeared alongside John Thaw in the Inspector Morse TV series, said he would remember his 60-year-old colleague for his modesty and friendship.
Mr Thaw died last Thursday at his home in Church Road, Luckington, after fighting an eight-month battle against oesophagus cancer.
Mr Grout, 75, of Cross Hayes Lane, Malmesbury, played Mr Thaw's commanding officer, Chief Supt Strange, in the Inspector Morse series, which spanned 33 episodes and 13 years.
"If we did a scene well, and everyone was happy with it, John's reaction was, `I think we nearly got it right that time, Jim,'" said Mr Grout, who is retired.
"He was a very modest man and it is that modesty that I will always remember."
Mr Grout first met Mr Thaw when the Manchester-born actor was 21, during his first role in a series called Red Cap, about the military police, broadcast on LWT.
"We filmed it at the Thames studios and he played a military policeman in fact he must have been one of the longest-running policemen in the world," said Mr Grout.
He said Mr Thaw was a private man who rarely socialised in Wiltshire.
But The Sweeney star, whose gritty Flying Squad detective Jack Regan won him millions of fans, did enjoy shopping in Malmesbury.
"He moved to Luckington from London and lived in the village for some time," said Mr Grout.
"He liked this place very much but unfortunately when he was working he was never near here, so he never had a chance to enjoy the place."
"He was often seen shopping in Malmesbury and would come round and ask where the best place was to buy things."
Last month Mr Thaw revealed that he had completed a series of chemotherapy treatments and was going to start radiotherapy.
Luckington residents Beatie Wilcox and June Toop looked after Mr Thaw's home when he and wife Sheila Hancock were away in London.
Mrs Wilcox said she and Mrs Toop continued looking after the house until shortly before the star's death.
Mrs Wilcox said: "He was just a quiet family man who came here for a quiet life and enjoyed spending his spare time here.
"I was very sad when I heard he had died and pass my sympathies on to his family."
Len Werrett, 80, the chairman of Luckington Parish Council, has written a letter of condolence on behalf of the parish council to Mr Thaw's family.
"I was quite shocked to hear the news because we knew he had cancer but did not know it was terminal," said Mr Werrett.
He recalled the first time he met Mr Thaw. "We went into The Old Royal Ship, the local pub, for a meal and he was sitting by the bar," said Mr Werrett.
"It was about Christmas time and I recognised him and thought I should introduce myself as the chairman of the parish council and welcome him to the village."
Mr Thaw could sometimes be seen at the post office on the green in Luckington. "When he came in we just chatted about normal things, like Kavanagh QC. He and his family came here to be quiet really and they didn't participate in things in the village," said Judith Sykes, the postmaster.
The Rev Malcolm Ross, the vicar of St Mary and Ethelbert Church, in Luckington, said residents were concerned to hear of the star's illness.
FRIENDS WELCOME THAW'S HONOUR
(April 25, 2002) -
MALMESBURY actor James Grout said his good friend John Thaw, with whom he co-starred in 23 episodes of Inspector Morse, would have been proud of the posthumous prize awarded to him at Sunday's BAFTA awards.
ITV's Buried Teasure, in which the actor, who lived in Luckington, near Malmesbury, made his final appearance, took the Lew Grade Audience Award at the ceremony.
His widow, actress Sheila Hancock, collected the award.
The star of The Sweeney died two months ago of cancer of the oesophagus.
"I think he deserved it and I'm delighted he won it," said Mr Grout, 76, of Cross Hayes, Malmesbury, who played Chief Superintendent Strange in Morse.
"I am sure John would have been delighted to have won it, because he won several of those awards and was always quite happy to accept them."
Mr Thaw's agent, Derek Webster, who had represented the 59-year-old star for more than 20 years, said he had mixed emotions watching the BAFTAs.
"As John's agent I was always immensely pleased with his work, although the BAFTAs were tinged with both sadness and pride," he said.
Mr Thaw picked up a BAFTA Fellowship last summer. On June 19 last year he announced he was having treatment for cancer.
ACTOR PREPARES TO BOW OUT
(December 31, 2002) -
At 75 most men would be well into their retirement, but Malmesbury actor James Grout is only now slowing down.
Mr Grout, most famous for his role in the long-running Inspector Morse series with the late John Thaw, is appearing in a two-part Christmas special of the comedy Old Harry's Game on Radio 4 on New Year's Eve and Day.
He plays a professor wrongly sent to Hell alongside the writer of the show Andy Hamilton, who plays the devil.
But one off shows aside, it seems that Mr Grout has his heart set on the quiet life, with the race for work and London no longer holding the enjoyment it once did.
"When you have got two artificial knees, you find it difficult to walk the stage," he said. "You have to be in London to work, especially on TV, but it's grey and I hate it.
It has been a great life but I am glad the chasing of work is over. I am just getting old. I just want to have the time and enjoy life."
Mr Grout, of Cross Hayes Lane, has been an actor since his late teens and during a career spanning five decades has worked with some of the greats of stage and screen, including Lauren Bacall, Peter O'Toole and Alec Guinness.
But it is his work as Chief Inspector Strange on the popular ITV series Inspector Morse that he and John Thaw are probably most remembered for.
He first met John Thaw 40 years ago on the television series Redcap.
Mr Grout played John Thaw's commanding officer on the show about the military police, a relationship that would be rekindled more famously with Inspector Morse in 1987.
Mr Thaw died at his home in Luckington on February 21 last year at the age of 60. "It was a terrible tragedy that he died so young," said Mr Grout. "He was a great friend and a great actor. He was a quiet man and a shy man."
"He was an excellent actor and very genuine he would allow other people to get benefits from the scenes and allow other people to work without stifling them."
Mr Grout said it was that excellence in acting that drove John Thaw on, and he would always be looking for what he could bring to the role.
"He got to play these great roles. It was a wonderful thing. He would read a part and think what he could put in it not what he could get out of it."
"John would always be thinking how he could improve a role. That is why he was a popular actor with the producers," he said.
This meant that he could be reclusive on set and a little impatient with those that dared disturb him when he was preparing for scene.
"He had a lot of lines to learn and his mind was always on the next scene, what he was going to have to say. If you had any sense you would leave him alone. You wouldn't pass the time of day with him."
Mr Grout recalled an accident a few years ago that brought their screen relationship crashing into reality in the newspapers.
"He was involved in an accident outside my house a few years ago," he said. "The police hide just outside my house sometimes to catch vehicles without tax, or that sort of thing.
They jumped out from in front of John. He pulled up very sharply and the car behind John hit him in the backside. I was away at the time but the press jumped on it, Inspector Morse crashes in front of Chief Inspector Strange's house."
Mr Grout says that he has enjoyed living in Malmesbury for the last 25 years and is looking forward to a relaxed retirement.
He has no children `not bothered by it,' he says and remembers first buying the house he still lives with his wife, Noreen, today.
"My mother had died and left a little property in Essex. We sold it and had a little bit of money and decided to go down the M4.
We kept passing signs for Malmesbury. So we thought let's go and have a look at this place called Malmesbury."
"I walked past the house that is mine now and I could see this cardboard sign in the window. I rang the doorbell and a little boy came to the door and said his mum was in the bath.
We were eventually shown around the house and by the time we got through, we thought it was lovely. We just wanted it."
Mr Grout said that now he is just beginning to be referred to as a local. "The new thing is beginning to wear off. It takes forever before you are not just a newcomer," he said. "I am very happy here, the people are very nice and very kind. We like them very much. My wife is very busy with the residents' association. I am trying to organise a piano recital by Bernard Roberts."
Looking back on his life, he recalls being encouraged to take up acting by his English teacher, Miss Monday.
"In school she realised that I was a wonderful show off," he said. "She kept giving me the best bits and the sound of my voice would fill the school.
I joined an amateur company called Incognitos. David Jason was in that same company, and a woman called Mary Phillips asked if I had thought of taking it up for a living. She suggested that I come to RADA in the autumn term with a couple of pieces. She was on the board of selectors and I got in."
As for fame, Mr Grout is looking forward to a quiet 2003. "I have always been in a supporting role. I like that bit," he said.
"If you star in a play, that's it for that year. You have to wait for another time when you start again.
"It's great. We have more of a private life. You can disguise oneself and play different sorts of parts."
NO MORE MR. NICE GUY
(June 1, 2001) - Actor Kevin Whately was once famous as TV's Mr Nice Guy - but no longer. After years of playing Inspector Morse's unassuming sidekick, Sergeant Lewis, he obviously got tired of turning the other cheek.
Since the Morse series ended last Autumn with the grumpy detective's death, Whately has embarked on a series of extremely dark roles including playing a peeping Tom and a wife murderer.
At the weekend he will be seen in Neighbour, playing Nigel a usually mild-mannered man who is driven to extremes by his brash neighbours. The drama, on June 10, is part of the BBC's Murder in Mind series which should give some idea as to what happens.
The action is set in an expensive modern housing estate. Playing the crass, noisy and nouveau riche neighbour from hell is Cold Feet star John Thomson with Denise Van Outen as his brash wife.
"Nigel is a very contented, easy-going guy who very quickly reaches the end of his tether," says Whately. "He becomes totally paranoid about this awful man who has moved in next door, even though he soon discovers that he doesn't seem to bother anyone else."
He adds: "You get the impression that Nigel and his wife have over-stretched themselves in buying this 'dream home' after inheriting some money. But those houses are just so close together that what he has is half a million pounds worth of claustrophobia."
"He develops a siege mentality and feels totally hemmed in and more and more trapped. In the end you have to ask the question, `Who is the nightmare neighbour - him or me?"'
Whately spent years building up his clean-cut image both as Lewis in Morse and playing Dr Jack Kerruish in Peak Practice. Now he seems to be enjoying completely different roles.
"I've played about three murderers recently," he grins. "But they have allhad reasons which have driven them to do what they do - they are not just two-dimensional killers, like in some American movies."
"I don't believe in the concept of 'type casting'. If you have a certain image - and I know that I do - then you can always subvert it and take the audience by surprise, take them in a different direction.
The nation took him to their hearts when he first appeared as newly wed Neville in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. Now Neville is returning to our screens.
The BBC is to bring the hit drama up to date, re-uniting Whately with Jimmy Nail, who played Oz, and Tim Healey, who was Denis, as three unemployed building workers who took themselves off to Germany in the early 80s to find jobs."
"It all sounded a bit surreal when it was first suggested," Whately admits. "But we have had a ball getting back together again and the old atmosphere is still there even after all these years. It's going to be great fun."
Sadly it was the sudden death of Sammy Johnson who played Stick, Jimmy Nail's sidekick in Spender, which sparked off ideas about a revival of the series.
Creators Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement and many of the Auf Wiedersehen cast had worked with the actor and organised a benefit night to set up a trust fund after he died. The tickets sold out within hours.
"Ian and Dick had written three little scenes about what the lads would have been up to now and it went down a storm at the City Hall in Newcastle. Now we hope to be making the new series at the end of the year.
But we were all determined that it was going to be far more than just are-union and a bit of a laugh," Whately says. "It will really have something to say about how life is treating skilled labourers in 2001."
The passing years have been kind to Whately who is married to actress Madelaine Newton. The couple met 20 years ago when they were appearing in the same theatre in their hometown of Newcastle upon Tyne. They have two children Kitty, 17, and 16-year-old Keiran.
He still has his boyish looks although he was 50 last February. Thankfully for his neighbours there was no all-night rave party for the milestone birthday. Instead his children arranged a surprise party at a London hotel.
"They had booked a stretch limo to take us into town and, when we got to the hotel, instead of just a few friends, there were about 130 old pals and relations I hadn't seen for years. There was a band and a special cake and the whole night was a blast, a total surprise."
He appears untroubled about his age. "Although you've got to admit that you are middle-aged when you reach 50. But I'm not falling to bits yet and age doesn't really bother me.
I certainly don't do anything much to keep fit and wouldn't dream of doing explosive sports, or going to the gym. But we do live in the country, so I'm always taking the dog for long walks in the woods."
THE END OF INSPECTOR MORSE: "GOODBYE, SIR" By Heather Mallick (Globe and Mail, Saturday, March 2, 2002) - The Feb. 21 death of John Thaw, 60, the beloved British actor who played the cerebral television detective Inspector Morse, came as a profound shock to millions. He had revealed only eight months before that he was suffering from esophageal cancer. And only eight months before that had been the last episode in the 13-year Morse series, which ended in a manner that would have been unheard of in North America, with the Morse character actually dying. "Seeing yourself on a mortuary slab pulls you up," Thaw said at the time. "I'd done a past Morse when he was in hospital and you think, 'This could be me tomorrow or in six months time. I could be here as John Thaw.' "
As it turned out, he was. Esophageal cancer is a particularly cruel form of the disease. It is most often caused by the combination of drinking alcohol and smoking. Thaw was asked once if he would keep on playing older and older characters. He said no. "I'll be dead. I smoke too many of these," he said, indicating his pack of cigarettes. The treatments for esophageal cancer are especially painful and the prognosis was poor. In a series of awful coincidences, Thaw's parents had died of cancer, his wife, Sheila Hancock (whose mother and first husband had died from cancer), was treated for breast cancer in 1988 (the stress of which caused a six-month marriage separation) and his grandson had recently recovered from a brain tumour.
John Thaw was a working-class boy, the son of a truck driver from Burnage, the same Manchester suburb that produced the Gallagher brothers of the rock band Oasis. When Thaw was 7, his mother walked out on the family. He never saw her again. All Thaw would ever say of this, with Morse-like understatement, was: "It wasn't very nice." When the teenaged Thaw came up with the novel idea of being an actor, his father said simply, "If it doesn't work, come back. We're here" and drove him to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London in an old van, being unable to afford train fare.
Anyone who understands the stratified social world of London in the 1950s would know how difficult it must have been for Thaw to train alongside the other, upper-class students. The actor Tom Courtenay recalls meeting Thaw at RADA, "a shy young boy in a teddy boy suit," moaning about "all these posh girls." But the arrival of kitchen-sink drama and the sudden demand for working class cred were to be greatly helpful.
Thaw began in theatre, but it was never his real love. His television career began with a cop role in a 1965 series called Redcap. But his first huge success came in 1975, when he played a rough, tough copper called Regan in The Sweeney (Sweeney Todd being rhyming slang for Flying Squad). Regan, slim, handsome, brutal and tender, didn't speak so much as bark, and he barked things like, "Get yer trousers on, you're nicked!" Thaw was as lucky with his sidekick, Dennis Waterman, as he was to be with Kevin Whately, who played the sincere Sgt. Lewis in the Morse series. The Sweeney was fast, violent, profane, innovative and hugely entertaining, all of which forced Thaw to work hard to avoid being typecast. He played roles as varied as that of Air Marshal (Bomber) Harris, destroyer of Dresden, a farmer in a film based on a Doris Lessing novel, a crime reporter and a divorced father in a very funny sitcom called Home to Roost.
And then came Morse. The only change Thaw requested in the author Colin Dexter's version of Morse was his antipathy to women. "I didn't like the seedy side of him. He was a bit of a dirty old man. I hated the fact that he was sometimes rude to women and I told the writers I wanted that changed." Morse was an unlikely success as a series - "almost plodding, classic whodunnits moving from clue to suspect, red herring to culprit, at a stately pace," one critic wrote. But Morse himself, lover of real ale, Wagner and crosswords, had some special quality. Thaw himself said Morse was "the nearest character to myself I have ever played. I'm very fond of the old bugger. He's not a cliché copper any more than Regan was. The guy's brain is working all the time."
So what was the appeal of Morse/Thaw? For one thing, he was instantly recognizable: that shock of white hair, the tan, the strong nose and the peculiar mouth. He limped slightly, which led to constant speculation about a wooden leg (not true). Simon O'Hagan of the Independent says the British are uniquely fond of "crumpled, aging actors." Director Stephen Frears thinks it's their "salt of the earth quality."
As for the appeal of Morse/Thaw, Globe and Mail television critic John Doyle says it arose from "a very peculiar mixture of weakness, arrogance and loneliness. He had this stare which told you he lived in an enclosed world. Still he always shyly tried to hook up with the wrong women -- usually the murderer. In the early episodes, which were marvellously filmed, this [loneliness] was emphasized visually. You'd get this gorgeous distance shot of Morse on a street with the sun setting behind him. He looked like the loneliest man in the world. The Morse code music at the end of an episode was like a signal in the dark from some really isolated man."
Thaw's television work post-Morse was not as successful. In A Year In Provence, for instance, Thaw had nothing much to do beyond loitering domestically and his presence was too strong for such nebulousness. But, by non-Hollywood standards, Thaw continued to earn extremely large sums of money. He and Hancock, 69, who were married for 30 years, had a house in Provence, a cottage in Wiltshire and a flat in London. They had three daughters from their various marriages, all three girls becoming actresses.
A year ago, Thaw, who had been singing Captain Hook in a radio musical, noticed a hoarseness in his voice. It was a death sentence. Morse's death, described in Dexter's The Remorseful Day, could serve to describe Thaw's as well: "Lewis found himself pondering so many things as he thought of Morse's mind within the skull. Thought of that wonderful memory, of that sensitivity to music and literature, above all of that capacity for thinking laterally, vertically, diagonally, whatever whichway that extraordinary brain should decide to go. But all gone now, for death had scattered that union of component atoms into the air, and Morse would never move or think or speak again. Feeling slightly guilty, Lewis looked around him. But at least for the moment his only company was the dead. And bending down he put his lips to Morse's forehead and whispered just two final words: 'Goodbye, sir.' "
John Thaw died peacefully at home, surrounded by family. He was cremated this week at Waterleigh in Gloucestershire.
SHEILA HANCOCK: PLAYING A SUPPORTING ROLE (July 2001) - Veteran actress Sheila Hancock could not believe it when she discovered that she had been splashed across the front pages of the newspapers in a passionate kiss.
The 68-year-old actress was pictured in a clinch with Martin Kemp in her final scenes as Steve Owen's screen mother in EastEnders. But she was blissfully unaware of the furore it aroused as she was on holiday in France with her husband the actor John Thaw at the time.
"When I came back the porters at the railway station told me I'd been in all the newspapers and I couldn't understand why," she says feigning surprise. "The story wasn't all about incest - there was one inappropriate kiss but there was no suggestion of incest. I think it must have been a bad week for news and there weren't many stories around.
What was sad was that they missed the main point - that this woman beat her kids - which I found shocking. When I filmed the story my character was very upset when Steve showed he still had the scars.
The kiss was just part of the action - she was a women who was obsessed about her beautiful son. She was drunk and dying - the fact that she had relentlessly beaten the kids was deeply shocking and difficult to play." EastEnders fan Hancock says she was delighted when she was offered the part of the overbearing matriarch Barbara Owen. But she quit the show within days of Thaw, 59, announcing he had cancer of the oesophagus in June. The actress wanted to be at his side while he underwent chemotherapy.
Thaw supported her through her own cancer scare 13 years ago when she beat breast cancer.
"Originally I was only going to be in one episode but it developed. They asked if I wanted to stay for a while but I said no. So they said 'let's go out with a bang'.
I'm totally hooked on EastEnders - one of the worst things about going on holiday is that I missed the show. It's very compulsive with me. It used to be the same with the Archers, I'm very addictive."
It has obviously been a traumatic few months for the actress since Thaw, the star of Inspector Morse and A Year in Provence, discovered that he was suffering from cancer. "It's not been easy this year so it was lovely to get away to France for a break," she admits.
"We get lost in the crowd there - I'm not complaining but it was nice just to look in the shops and sit in a cafe which is difficult to do over here. "John is doing well. He is in the middle of his treatment and they are all very thrilled. He is responding marvellously.
"There is no news when he might start working again. But we are hoping he will be able to start some time in the autumn. But with all these things you play it day by day and see what happens."
Hancock will next be seen in BBC1's new mini-soap Bedtime which is set in the bedrooms of adjoining houses in an ordinary London street. Funny and compelling, it is written and directed by Andy Hamilton who was behind Drop The Dead Donkey.
"I spent hours in bed. It was lovely but I did keep dropping off," she says of her role as a bright but frustrated woman in a stale marriage.
The production crew used to bring me biscuits and cups of tea in bed. I never moved. When we had a break they would ask if I wanted to go back to the dressing room I would tell them I wanted to stay in bed.
Interesting parts for women of my age are pretty thin on the ground. On the surface the woman seems to be conventional but as things go on you realise there is something quite brave about her.
I also thought it was a bloody good bit of writing and they are pretty thin on the ground too."
Hancock first tasted success in the 60s in the television sitcom The Rag Trade and has become one of this country's best-loved actresses.
Her first husband Alec Ross died of cancer in 1971 and she has been married to Thaw for 28 years. They have three daughters, one each from their previous marriages, Melanie and Abigail, and one of their own called Joanna. Originally all three decided to pursue a career in acting but Hancock admits she is happier two have now decided that it is not for them.
"My eldest daughter Melanie, much to my relief, is doing interior design. She did her own house up very well and then a lot of people asked her for help. She thought it was silly as it was turning into a job. She did a course and is now working with an architect.
My middle daughter, Abigail, is at The Globe and my youngest daughter is contemplating doing a course in psychiatry. "I pray all the time that they will give up acting. If I get a sniff of them doing anything different I encourage them."
But she is pleased about her current high TV profile "I've spent many years being envious of other actresses of my age getting good parts when I couldn't give myself away," she says with a satisfied smile.
THE BAFTA INTERVIEWS: SHEILA HANCOCK (March 2002) - John Thaw has been nominated for a posthumous BAFTA for one of his last major roles. The nomination is for ITV's Buried Treasure, a modern story of a curmudgeonly business man who's forced to look after a grand-daughter he'd not known for 10 years. Steve spoke to Sheila Hancock about life without John, awards and her own BAFTA nomination for The Russian Bride.
Q: Tell us a little bit about this nomination, do you remember him working on this?
Sheila: Yes I do, he enjoyed it hugely because he loved working with kids and the child in this was particularly enchanting. It was quite a tricky subject because there was a sort of racial context within it. I thought it was amazingly well handled and a very compassionate and caring piece.
Q: Was it a piece of work that he was proud of do you think?
Sheila: You know John! The most he would ever say was "I got away with it" but yes, I think he was relatively proud of it. It got a good audience rating which was always important to John because he did it for the people... He didn't walk out - let's put it that way!
Q: It's interesting you say that - did he used to do that thing where he would cover his eyes and say "I don't want to see this"?
Sheila: No, because he was unlike me, I never watch myself... He was amazingly professional, so he could sit quite objectively, look at his work and say "I won't do that again" if he thought he'd done something badly. He would almost be able to analyse it as if it wasn't him.
Q: Like yourself, he always made his roles believable - if he played a character you'd believe that he was it...
Sheila: Yeah, it's very interesting... the reaction to his death has been quite phenomenal and I try to analyse that because both of us have always only regarded ourselves as working actors, certainly John did...
Q: I was gonna ask you about that, why do you think... why was he beloved?
Sheila: Although he was an extremely good character actor - I mean, he could do any accent, actually if you think of the difference between what he looked like in Mister Tom and Kavannagh and things like that, he could transform himself physically although he had a very distinctive face. I think there was always something of him, the man did have the most amazing integrity. He also had the most phenomenally good eyes, he didn't have to do anything, you could just feel it and his eyes showed it. I just think that reached out to something in people.
Q: Let me ask you a personal question. How are you coping without him?
Sheila: Not well. Bloody awful to be perfectly honest, it's hell, I hate it. But there you go, there are a lot of other people in my position. I've had lots of letters from people who are dealing with it and they say that it does eventually get a bit better. It's happened to me before and I know it does, but just at the moment I miss him horribly.
Q: You yourself Sheila are nominated for The Russian Bride. Remind me, you played kind of a... you were Blousey weren't you?
Sheila: Well I am blousey you know, deep down!
Q: You were a chorus girl in it...
Sheila: Yes, I was - she's an ex-chorus girl, an ageing chorus girl in this amazing story. It was one of the best scripts I've ever read in my entire life, John thought it was phenomenally good and he would be double chuffed that it was nominated as well. She gets hold of a Russian bride for her son who is fairly inadequate and then another man comes in and falls in love with this girl and it turns into mayhem and murder! It's the most extraordinary piece and I ended up having had a stroke and not being able to say a word! Talk about running the gambit - I did!
Q: I saw this and 'manipulative' would be a fairly indicative word wouldn't it?
Sheila: I'm a bit like John, I always try to love the characters I do and although on the surface she seems like a cow, I actually could understand where she was coming from. She was absolutely besottedly in love with her son and that's how I feel about my daughters, so I'd fight tooth and nail for them which she did for her son.
Q: How important are awards to you, Sheila and how important were they to John? He was a very modest man and I know that because I interviewed him for the show about 18 months ago and we were at the BAFTAs last year when he got that special award... He was almost - embarrassed is the wrong word but he didn't like to go up there and take all of that glory...
Sheila: He is very shy and I'm very shy and therefore the idea of those public events always frightened us, they're kind of like a performance for us really. But the great thing is when you get there, there are always loads of mates and that makes it bearable. You are on show, John was immensely proud of getting the fellowship and I ticked him off actually because he should of made a speech, but when he got up there he just couldn't! He was prepared to but then he just "thank you!" and rushed off! I said "why on earth didn't you make a speech?" but he just couldn't cope with it.
I'm looking now, there's a row of prizes that John got over the years and honest to God I think he's got every prize going! He was always amazed, he's had this audience prize that he's up for now, two years running and he really didn't expect it. I have to say - it delighted him. To know that the public liked him, ultimately that's what we do it for, without an audience we're nothing. It doesn't matter how much the critics love us and how much our peers love us, if the audiences don't want it then forget it! The thing about John was, the audiences always wanted him.
COLIN DEXTER ON THE END OF MORSE - (From The Irish News, October 1998) -
Such was the fame of Morse (both through Dexter's brilliant and playful books and the phenomenal popularity of the John Thaw TV adaptations) that the announcement that Remorseful Day would signal an end to the saga brought TV cameras beating a path to the bemused author's door. Dexter talks about the beginning and the end of Endeavour Morse.
Dexter says that he had no plans originally to write a sequel to the first Inspector Morse Novel The Last Bus To Woodstock. The debut novel was more concerned with creating a one-off character. "At the time I'd just thought I'd try to write one detective story. I never had any ideas of a series or anything. After the second book it was more an aggregation of circumstances."
As the Morse series developed, Dexter's stories became inextricable from the realistic backdrop of Oxford and its university. "Morse is part of the town-and-gown duality. He's partly in and partly out. He spent three years at Oxford but didn't get a degree."
Before starting the Morse novels Dexter had been a classics lecturer and an examinations board official at Oxford. Surprisingly, the author feels his career in education was not a major help in writing the books, few of which contain autobiographical details. "There are some aspects of the gown side that influenced me, but describing the topography of Oxford was more important.
Knowing nothing about the police or crime, I had to rely on my knowledge of Oxford, being meticulous about making local facts accurate and giving the stories as much verisimilitude as possible."
Though Dexter didn't start writing the books until 1970, he had the protagonist's name in mind since the 1950s. An avid crossword buff, he used to see the name CJ Morse printed as winner of The Observer's cryptic puzzle. Lewis's name came from the pseudonym of a crossword compiler. Then there is the complex enigmatic personality of his hero. How did he create that? "I wanted to make him a very clever person. I could write with some conviction about his interests: poetry, whiskey, opera, whatever. I gave him some qualities that weren't quite so endearing. He's a bit mean with money; a loner and melancholic. But he is sensitive too."
Q: Were you expecting all the furore that happened when the news broke that the The Remorseful Day was to be the last Morse novel?
Colin Dexter: Yes and no. When I had revealed that Morse's first name was Endeavour in the previous book, this had been treated as a serious news item in most of the media. So I certainly had an inkling that what I was going to do in the next book would create something of a fuss. But I must admit that I'd never seen so many cameras in my life--the response was phenomenal.
Q: There was tremendous secrecy around the fate of Morse in this novel.
Dexter: Well, we did try to keep it quiet. And everybody played along--we almost got away with it. Except, of course, for the Daily Telegraph, which I thought was very discourteous of them. I'm not a great fan of the paper, anyway, but I thought it was naughty of them.
Q: Did your publisher--or anyone else--put pressure on you to avoid this being the final book?
Dexter: A little, yes. But I felt that it was a decision that had to be taken. I've never been a full-time writer anyway--I've spent most of my life in education. But I had written enough about Oxford and Morse. Look at the TV series alone: sixty-six hours about the character. My greatest fear was always that I would lose the freshness, and I thought it was time to end things before I started to repeat myself. And, anyway, I don't think many people get better as they get older, do you?
Q: The Remorseful Day, surely, is one of the best Morse novels, with deeper and richer characterisation than in any previous book.
Dexter: Even so. And there's another factor: the body count among the academic population of Oxford was becoming so high…
Q: Yes, you've made wry references before to the bloody swathe you've cut through this city.
Dexter: Well, I thought it was time to make Oxford a slightly safer place, having had to provide so many corpses for Morse. I'd made the city the literary murder capital of Europe.
Q: Your readers have always loved the relationship between the abrasive Morse and the long-suffering Lewis.
Dexter: There again, I felt it was time to call a halt before it became a cliché. For example, the thing about money: Morse is so mean, and will do anything to avoid buying a round. There's Lewis on about a third of his salary having to buy nine tenths of the booze… But there are only so many times you can utilise these characteristics. And in every book, apart from mentioning Housman and The Archers--well, you have to come up with new "tics" for the characters.
Q: Conan Doyle certainly reused familiar ideas in the relationship between Holmes and Watson.
Dexter: Yes, but they are mostly short stories. And as for moving the character on: they tell me that everybody has to die…it's not sad from Morse's point of view, is it? It's sad from the point of view of Lewis' perception. As usual, throughout the book Lewis is about six furlongs behind--and he's still behind two or three pages from the end. But he finally realises that there are things he, Lewis, cannot put right--things involving Morse. And this is sad, denying him a sense of closure.
Q: You seem to have a healthy sense of the unlikely in your books--do you think that readers are not prepared to suspend disbelief about, for instance, the number of capital crimes that take place in Oxford?
Dexter: I suppose they are, but it was beginning to worry me, and that sense of verisimilitude is crucially important, surely.
Q: Chandler famously remarked that Philip Marlowe was essentially an impossible figure: if he'd trodden on as many toes as he did throughout the books, he would certainly have been summarily killed. But don't readers ignore such inconvenient realities?
Dexter: Well, I'm a great Chandler fan, and I similarly am concerned with such things. And although I admire Chandler more than any other crime writer, I did think he made a great mistake in marrying Marlowe off. What book was it in?.
Q: Playback or Poodle Springs--the unfinished one.
Dexter: Yes, Playback. You lose the dynamic that comes from all the familiar characteristics: Marlowe alone in his office taking a slug from the bottle in the filing cabinet, all that sort of thing. There is only so much you can do with a character before you retire him--or, at least it would be advisable to retire him. Hence, Morse….
Q: To get back to the relationship between Lewis and Morse: you've admitted that you allowed the character of Lewis to change from a Welshman to that of a Geordie, reflecting Kevin Whately's TV portrayal…
Dexter: Yes, I did do that. But Whately is a remarkable actor. He's reading the audio book version of The Remorseful Day, did you know that?
Q: Have you heard that yet? And do you listen to the audiotape versions of your books?
Dexter: I must admit that I haven't had a chance to hear it yet but I know that Kevin will do an exemplary job--although it's a little strange having an actor so completely identified with a particular character assuming the authorial voice. I know that more and more people are listening to audio books in their cars these days--it's definitely a growth industry.
Q: How do you feel about British writers such as Dorothy L Sayers? You share with her a love of language and word play…
Dexter: My feelings about Sayers are this side of idolatry, but I admire her principally as a scholar. Books such as The Nine Tailors are wonderfully inventive (although it's highly improbable - the solution to the murder simply didn't hold water), but I do have problems with Wimsey these days...
Q: P D James is sometimes criticised for making Adam Dalgleish such a lover of poetry--people point out that it's a highly unusual police inspector who has such rarefied tastes. But nobody seems to be worried about Morse and his love of Wagner and Schubert…
Dexter: Perhaps it's because I also stress Morse's love of beer--now that's plausible in a copper, isn't it? And Morse is a very different character from Dalgleish.
Q: When you talk about Morse and your books in public, you're often noticeably wry--which often seems to take audiences aback a little. Have you noticed that your readers take your books more seriously than you do?
Dexter: To some degree--although that's not to say I don't take them seriously. But I am creating this character and this universe (or, more precisely, recreating Oxford and trying to do justice to a beautiful city), and readers sometimes have a tendency to start to believe the truth of what they're reading. As the author, you know it's all a fabrication.
Q: Is there a separate audience for the literary Morse and the TV Morse, or have you found that they are usually the same?
Dexter: From the letters I receive, I know that most people read the books, but I have had letters from people who admit to being familiar only with John Thaw's TV incarnation. It's a good thing, I suppose, that he's so good at it.
Q: Now that you've written the last Morse novel, is it possible to have a perspective on the series? Do you have a favourite?
Dexter: Do you mean a favourite, or what I consider to be the best book?
Q: Both.
Dexter: Actually, I know what my most underrated book is: it's The Secret of Annexe 3 which, in all modesty, has some of my best plotting. And then, of course, The Jewel That Was Ours.
Q: I know a lot of Dexter aficionados are very fond of The Dead of Jericho…
Dexter: Are they? Well, I'm always happy when Dexter aficionados are happy.
Q: Will we be hearing from you again in other writing projects?
Dexter: Perhaps.
Q: Thank you for your time.
Dexter: You're very welcome.
PETER MAYLE'S PROVENCE - (Interview by Phillip Silverstone & Henry Alford) -
What do you do, when you become disillusioned with the rat race, and realize luxuries such as indoor plumbing are no longer important to you? Become a wine columnist? No, wrong answer. You simply pack your bags, and nip off to Provence. After a brief encounter with the eccentricities of the natives, you record your dramas and triumphs in two books that quickly become best sellers the world over. Then, when everyone and his uncle suddenly appears on your doorstep, you pack your bags and move on, leaving your unwanted visitors to trample all over the once pristine French countryside.
This is precisely what happened to Peter Mayle whose Provence books captured the imagination of millions of foodies and winers around the globe.
Peter Mayle grew up in England. He was an executive in an advertising firm agency for many years before he started his career in writing. In the mid-seventies, after 15 years, he gave up the fast pace of Manhattan and moved with his wife, Jenny, to Provence, in the south of France. He's credited with 'discovering Provence', the way Christopher Columbus discovered America. From what I understand his first book, A Year in Provence, was so successful, he actually had to leave to escape the tourism. He now divides his time between the south of France and Long Island.
Q: In The Year in Provence, you say that what makes life worth living is the happy shock of discovering that you have managed to give a few hours of entertainment to people you have never met. How did it feel when you realized just how many people were being thoroughly captivated by your writing?
PM: There was a sense of disbelief to start off with and it took me a long time to realize that the book was becoming well known and it was only when I looked at the printing numbers that I realized it had really taken off. For at least a year or two after I wrote it, nothing much changed as far as I was concerned. I mean nobody was dancing up and down asking for my autograph. Life just went on as it had been. And you know, I would get my nice notes from my publisher that we're reprinting again, and one of these days you'll get your royalty check.
And then I started getting letters from people, and then I started getting more letters and then I started getting so many letters I had to get a girl to help me out to answer them. And I have gradually got used to the idea that I really have been able to give a lot of people a few hours of pleasure. And it's the most wonderful feeling because writing, unlike other forms of artistic endeavor...acting or music performance, or whatever...there is no immediate audience. In fact, you could actually go through most of your writing life, unless you came out on these sort of book tours, without ever meeting your audience. So, to that extent, once you start getting some feedback and it's positive feedback, it's a marvelously gratifying thing.
Q: You've devoted many pages of your books to the millionaire's mushroom. Why are truffles so revered by gastronomes and why are they traded as if they were a controlled substance?
PM: To a certain extent they are a controlled substance in that they are unable to be cultivated and so they are controlled by the whim of nature. And they're not necessarily everybody's taste. I happen to adore them, but they are very, very pungent indeed. If you have some in your kitchen, the smell will go through the entire floor of the house. It will go through anything except glass and tin. So if you want a truffle omelet without having to use a truffle, you can put the truffle in with a box of eggs, and the flavor will penetrate the eggshells and you have a flavored omelet without using the precious fungus.
The trade in truffles is so murky because they are rare and because they command huge prices. Last winter in Paris they were going for 8000 francs a kilo, which is about seven hundred dollars a pound. And of course when things are that expensive, and they're not branded, and they're not manufactured, and you can't really be sure of their provenance, you find a lot of funny business going on. You get dealers who are fairly unscrupulous and you'll find them in bars and cafes around market towns in the truffle season. And if you ask for 500 grams of truffles, they take out a scale from their muddy pocket, rummage around in their bag, and they produce these wonderful truffles which they weigh. Then you get home and scrub them and begin chopping them and you may well find they've got lead buckshot or slivers of lead in the bottom to enhance the weight and therefore the price.
But you have paid for your truffles in cash, because checks or credit cards aren't accepted. And since the guy probably won't work that market again for another year or so, you've had it. There's a truffle you can grow in French West Africa in Senegal, which is white and which is almost tasteless. But they ship them to France where they're stained with walnut juice until they're as close to a black truffle as they can be and then they're packaged and sold as black truffles. It's always fascinated me because it's such a murky business, so that's why I used it in my new book.
Q: People in your books spend an enormous amount of time enjoying a drink called Pastis. What the heck is it?
PM: Well, it's dangerous in a word. It's essentially a mixture of aniseed, licorice and herbs, all of which is very harmless. And then they put in forty-five percent of alcohol and what happens is...Yes, it is the most alcoholic drink in the world. I mean it's stronger alcoholic content than whiskey or brandy. I think there is bourbon in the States that is forty-five degrees or ninety proof, whatever they call it. But I think as strong as the law allows is forty-five.
Q: What kind of food typifies Provencal cuisine?
PM: For me, the basis of it all is olive oil, wonderful vegetables in their various seasons like peppers, tomatoes, beans...things like that which I particularly like. Goat's cheese is terrific down there. There is something like thirty-eight different kinds of goat's cheese. Not a great deal of meat because very rarely do you get any good beef because there are no cows because there is no grass. So game is very good. And there is so much choice in the summer - you get wonderful asparagus. You get actually rather good fish too - Mediterranean fish. So, on the whole, probably in the winter I would think of game, stews, and things like that. And in the summer just enormous salads and fish done with fennel and barbecued over vine clippings and things like that.
It's quite a healthy diet, in fact. The people in the southwest of France are the people who live longest of all French, and the French themselves are quite a long lived race and that's why I think I haven't really put on a great deal of weight. Because I think it's probably a healthy diet and it's somehow balanced, and I've been eating like a horse for the last eight years and haven't really gained too much weight, much to the irritation of a lot of my friends. It's a diet that I believe to be extremely sensible. Although sense isn't what they graded it for in the first place. They graded it because it tasted good or looked good, but it seems to work.
And the thing that I find I miss very much in America, where there are some extremely good restaurants, I won't deny that...Americans don't have any cheese worth talking about...do they? I mean it's just that yellow stuff. I bought goat's cheese in New York because I thought it was real goat's cheese and it had been so pasteurized and processed and it smelled vaguely of ammonia. It wasn't anything like the goat's cheese that I was used to. Because you can get them at various stages of ripeness and freshness and everything, and it's the most delicate, wonderful taste when you get a proper goat's cheese.
Q: To hell with my wife's subscription to the health club. I'm moving to Provence. Talking of longevity, which moves me nicely onto wine, which wines do the locals enjoy on a daily basis and which wines do you enjoy?
PM: There are numerous little places now, springing up all over where they are really trying hard to make an impact on the already overcrowded wine market. But our local stuff, it goes down a treat. I don't think it's doctored in any way with sulfides or any of that stuff. It never gives anybody a hangover. Rather strangely pink-tinged teeth, but not a hangover. I don't know if there is some sort of local chauvinism or something, but they absolutely won't sell you Bordeaux or burgundy. The local wine stores can get them obviously, but as a matter of course they all say "Why? Why do you want that? Here is a very good wine. Enough of that overpriced rubbish," they say.
And there is no shortage of choice. I mean I have been trying diligently to exhaust every available opportunity to find out about every local wine carve within a forty-five minute radius of the house and I still haven't gotten more than halfway through the list.
Q: When the time comes for you to drink your last glass of Pastis, and pop off to that great truffle patch in the sky, what contribution do you hope to have made to the world through your books?
PM: If I have made a few people laugh, that would be a great contribution.
Q: It occurs to me that your three books are nothing but an excuse to eat a lot of expensive French food.
PM: Well, it's not always expensive, and eating is one of those things that you have to do every day, so you might as well do it as enjoyably as possible. I've been lucky with where I live. It would be quite difficult to have the same enjoyment in, say, Newcastle or somewhere like that.
Q: However, you also write about the pitfalls of having servants.
PM: Yes. They're always hanging around for a start. You never get a moment to yourself. I haven't got any servants myself, and I'd never want any, although what they do is magical. But the thought of tripping over people as one is stumbling out of bed in the morning going to the kitchen -- or you've just put your feet up and are reading some really trashy novel and someone wants to come in and press your dressing gown or something like that. It's terribly inconvenient, and you never know when you're going to bump into them. You're tiptoeing home with a frightful hangover, and all of a sudden there's this beaming idiot wanting to give you a cup of tea and a poached egg.
Q: In the chapter (in Acquired Tastes) in which you buy a pair of $1,300 hand-built shoes in London, you describe the service in the store by writing, "It isn't overly insulting. It's simply as if you were a deaf, inanimate, and inconveniently shaped object to be shrouded as tastefully as possible."
PM: They treat you very politely, but once they're working on you, taking your measurements and everything, they have this sort of shorthand, and they mutter at each other and say, "Well, we'll have to do something about that." You think, "God almighty -- I've sprung a growth somewhere." They get carried away with their professionalism, and they're deeply concerned with your contours. They're working, they're not actually talking to you -- you might as well have gone off and had a cup of coffee, except they happen to need your body for the process.
Q: If you could install one luxurious amenity into your house free of charge, what would it be?
PM: I think it would have to be a secretary. At the moment I answer all my own letters, all my own calls, and they tend to pile up and I'm very bad at them. What I would love is a secretary who's about 60 years old, trained in the Army, absolutely averse to speech before midday, waiting to be piled with masses and masses of work and chores -- a silent, completely efficient machine disguised as a human being.
Q: She could also fend off unpleasant phone calls.
PM: The right person could do everything. That would be true luxury.
Q: Would she also offer fawning praise upon request?
PM: No, no. I've got dogs who do that.
The following are a few impressions of Provence from Peter Mayle himself (March 25, 1997):
None of us these days can escape those small, brightly colored and infinitely alluring scraps of propaganda that our more fortunate friends send us when they're on vacation and we're not. Nothing provokes envy and Monday-morning gloom faster than a postcard. And when that postcard is from Provence, slightly wine-stained, redolent with heat and sunlight and tranquillity, it is probably enough to make you kick the cat as you leave to go to the office.
All, however, is not what it seems. Beneath that implausibly blue sky, a number of surprises -- never even hinted at in the photograph of the picturesque village or the genial lavender-cutter -- lie in wait for the innocent visitor. I believe I've experienced most of them, and these words of caution are the result of personal and occasionally painful research. Be warned. If you venture to Provence, you will encounter some, if not all, of the following local specialties.
UNDISCIPLINED WEATHER -
Provence has been accurately described as a cold country with more than its fair share of sunshine, and the climate can't seem to make up its mind whether to imitate Alaska or the Sahara. There were days during our first winter when the temperature fell to 15 degrees Fahrenheit; in summer, it can stay at 85-plus for week after rainless week. The local zephyr is the mistral, which has been known to blow at 110 miles an hour, taking hats, spectacles, roof tiles, open shutters, old ladies and small unsecured animals with it. And there are storms of quite spectacular violence. It is the meteorological equivalent of a meal consisting of curry and ice cream.
KAMIKAZE DRIVERS -
Your first few hours on the roads of Provence will not be dull. The Provencal motorist, brimming with élan, impatience and sometimes, it must be said, with half a liter of good red wine, regards driving in much the same way that a matador looks on his encounters with a bull -- that is, as a challenge to come as close to catastrophe as possible without incurring physical damage. And so you will find, to your alarm, that cars appear to be glued to your exhaust pipe until a sufficiently perilous moment to overtake you presents itself. This will be achieved with centimeters to spare on a blind bend, while the driver conducts a spirited conversation with his passenger that requires at least one hand being off the wheel. (Conversation in Provence cannot take place without manual assistance.) The mistake made by most visitors is to give in to natural impulses and close the eyes as certain disaster looms. If you can resist that, you will probably survive.
ELASTIC CLOCKS -
The Provencal attitude toward time is that there is plenty of it. If by chance you should run out of it today, more will be available tomorrow. Or the day after. Or next week.
This admirably relaxed state of mind is, of course, at odds with the curious habit that many visitors bring with them from Paris or London or New York: the exotic concept of punctuality. It's not that this is ignored. Indeed, the important matter of the next rendezvous is often discussed seriously and at great length over two or three drinks. But somehow the arrangement is never quite as precise as you might expect. A day -- let's say Tuesday --will be agreed upon with much emphatic nodding. This encourages you to suggest that a time on Tuesday should be fixed, and here you begin to sense a certain amiable but firm disinclination to pin down the rendezvous to anything more exact than a tentative commitment to either the morning or the afternoon. As it turns out, even this is optimistic, since nobody comes until Friday. Excuses are performed by the shoulders. Elsewhere in the world, patience is a virtue. In Provence, it's a necessity.
BODILY ASSAULTS (EXTERNAL) -
There have been many occasions when a five-minute chat with a Provencal friend has left me feeling as though I've undergone a course of brisk exploratory surgery. Apart from the obligatory mangling handshake -- or, with the opposite sex, the double or triple kiss -- there is the vigorous kneading of the shoulder, the attack on the breastbone by the tapping of an iron index finger, the friendly clap around the kidneys, the odd glancing blow from the knuckles of a gesticulating hand, and the tweak administered to the cheek by way of a fond farewell.
In other words, conversation is more than a mere exchange of words. It is a bruising physical encounter with a human windmill.
BODILY ASSAULTS (INTERNAL) -
One is invited and expected to drink. Provence is awash with locally produced wine, from the modest ordinaire to the grand and heady vintages of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, and it would be impolite and unadventurous not to try as many of them as your liver can stand. There are, however, two alcoholic booby-traps that should be approached with extreme caution.
The first is vin rosé. It may be a pale, smoky pink or a deeper tint not unlike the blush of a grog-blossom nose, and it looks light, frivolous and harmless. It tastes delicious, crisp and chilled, the perfect drink for a blinding hot day. You reach for another glass (or another bottle, as the first one slipped down so pleasantly) and congratulate yourself on avoiding anything too heavy. This is a mistake, since many rosés contain as much as 13 percent alcohol. This, combined with an hour or two in the after-lunch sun, can produce a truly epic hangover.
And then there is pastis, by far the most popular aperitif in Provence. The taste is clean and sharp and refreshing, exactly what one needs to settle the dust and stimulate the palate after a hectic morning in the market. There is no immediate jolt, as the alcohol is masked by the other ingredients, and it is insidiously easy to drink. Only later, when you try unsuccessfully to walk to lunch in a straight line, do you feel the effects of this delightful Provencal invention.
THE LINGERING GUEST -
A house in Provence, whether you own it or rent it, is a magnet. No sooner are you installed, in what you hoped would be a blissful seclusion, than the phone calls begin. They are from friends, or friends of friends, who are concerned that you might be lonely or bored. By chance, they find themselves free to come down, cheer you up and entertain you.
What a noble sacrifice! They have made the journey from some distant rain-sodden paradise in the north just to be with you, to share the discomforts of your bucolic existence -- the sun, the pool, the endless racket of corks coming out of bottles, the siestas. And their stamina is quite extraordinary. Despite third-degree sunburn, gastric disorders (always blamed on the local water, never the local wine), lack of television, mercilessly long meals and all the other shortcomings of the simple life, they bravely soldier on. And on. And on. A weekend visit stretches to a week, and then 10 days, or longer. One hero arrived in October and was still with us on New Year's Eve, only leaving when the builders came to knock down his bedroom wall.
And still they come, from Easter until Christmas, willing to endure anything that man and nature can throw at them in Provence. I suppose that, like me, they're gluttons for punishment.
COLIN DEXTER SAYS GOODBYE TO MORSE - (2000) After 25 years and 13 novels, Colin Dexter is swapping Inspector Morse for creosote! -
The writer says goodbye to his famous creation with the final novel 'The Remorseful Day' to enjoy his retirement by catching up with letters, mowing the lawn and creosoting the fence.
Since Morse was first mooted as a potential TV drama, Colin has maintained constant links with executive producer Ted Childs and the four producers of the 33 films. "A lot of crime novelists would say they haven't been given a fair run with their particular books but I would never say that," he says. "I've been consulted at all times, we go through all the scripts together with the producer and the director and they've been wonderfully good to me."
Colin admits that didn't set out to create a great detective series. "I was on holiday in North Wales with the family and it was raining. One afternoon there was nothing much to do so I sat down at the kitchen table and just wrote a page or so about a detective," he explains. "There was no great plan behind it, the whole process was gradual."
Since the very beginnings of the televised version of his novels, Dexter has been a regular visitor to the Oxford filming locations, and revels in his Hitchcock-type appearances in each film. "Once or twice I've been left on the cutting room floor," he laughs. Appropriately, in the final drama, Colin appears as an elderly wheelchair-bound tourist, who almost bumps into John Thaw as Morse gazes despondently into the Isis below Magdalen Bridge.
Colin and his wife Dorothy have lived in Oxford since 1966, and he is sanguine about the reputation he has given his adopted city. "With the body count in Oxford now raised to almost 80, the city had become the murder capital of the UK, and the time had come to put an end to this," he says.
"Various possibilities suggested themselves for Morse: retirement; marriage; failure; nervous breakdown; death whilst on duty; death whilst not on duty...
I decided that Morse must die."
Over the years, Colin has seen the great inspector's health gradually worsen since he introduced him to the reading public in the first Morse novel 'Last Bus To Woodstock', published in 1975.
"In that first book, Morse was vaguely in his mid-forties; and he must now be well past the age of retirement," Colin recalls. "His health has been steadily poorer over the past few years; and his life-style, in particular, his excessive consumption of alcohol, has probably been the main cause of this."
Colin, who celebrated his 70th birthday last month, says: "I suspect that few of us get much better as we get older.
Certainly, in the last few years, I have found it increasingly difficult to pursue the lonely and demanding discipline of writing. It was time for me to finish, too," he says.
"I'm going to try to catch up with life! I shall be trying to catch up with letters, creosoting the fence, mowing the lawn, that sort of thing!"
As he takes a more leisurely look at life, the writer pays tribute to the team who have been associated with the television appearances of his detective. "There is an extraordinary calibre and loyalty in the persons who guided Morse through the TV films: in particular, Kenny McBain, Ted Childs, Chris Burt, John Thaw, Kevin Whately, and James Grout," he says.
"I am naturally saddened to take leave of the melancholy, sensitive, vulnerable, independent, ungracious, mean-pocketed Morse," Colin admits.
"I receive lots of letters saying that I won't be forgiven for killing him off and I have to write back to say I'm sorry but I don't think you'll miss the old man half as much as I will.
He has lived with me now for more than a quarter of a century - and I shall miss him sadly."
CLARE HOLMAN REMEMBERS MORSE -
(2000) Clare Holman's introduction as the new Morse pathologist came in the stately surroundings of Blenheim Palace - where she thought she was expecting to meet an Inspector 'Mouse'! -
As she now recalls: "I was quite nervous but luckily my very, very first line on that first day was 'I wonder if you can help me, I'm looking for Inspector Mouse!'
Nobody knew me - but John and Kevin and all the crew burst into laughter, so it was a great introduction for me."
Clare was brought in as Laura Hobson in 'The Way Through the Woods' and has since appeared in each annual film - a total of five.
Next: Articles & Interviews (Pt.5)
"It's a very nice thing to turn to and like being part of a family. To be able to go back to Morse all the time was fantastic - Kevin and John are always such good fun to be around. I'm really sad about losing that part of my acting life."
Dr Hobson and Morse enjoy a war of words as they examine bodies in and around Oxford.
"The dialogue is acerbic but my impression is that it's always in good fun. It's flirtatious - on both sides. Laura is someone who won't be patronised in her work while Morse represents an old school way of detecting," she says."
"He doesn't know how to take this woman but I think they enjoy their banter."
When Clare initially took on the mantle of Laura and for the first four films, she saw the character as a single woman creating a career while sacrificing other sides of her life.
"You don't see much of Laura outside her professional life and there was just one scene in an earlier film where I asked Morse for a drink - and he refused me! For the last film, I decided that in the intervening year, Laura had met a man and married, since Morse's refusal to go for a drink."
That first scene at Blenheim made quite a contrast with the Morse locations in which Dr Hobson - and Clare - usually finds themselves.
"They're often in horrible places and I am in strange clothes, wearing terribly unflattering white SOCO (Scenes of Crime Officer) suits. I have plastic shoes as well; you look like a big baby! The costume designer has great trouble because I'm so short, so even the smallest size suit has to be rolled up," she says.
"We did try and introduce a skirt in the pathology lab, but I had to wear a lab coat over it. I fought for having the lab coat open so we could at least see an attractive blouse - or a little cleavage!" she adds.
But there was a simple reason why Clare managed to get out of wearing a hard hat in 'The Remorseful Day' scenes on the rubbish tip, "I looked like an idiot - it's called actors' vanity," she laughs.
Clare thinks the rubbish tip location of this final Morse film is the most unpleasant of all. "The tip stank; it was hot and windy; and while most people on the crew had masks, the actors couldn't wear them because they made lines on our faces!"
And Clare admits she's fairly certain that she wouldn't make a good real life pathologist, saying:: "I'd be a bit too squeamish; I think you have to be very detached, and as an actor, you have to be very involved, so they are opposites in a way.
Pathologists must have to develop a kind of separateness, like doctors and nurses, to deal with injury and death," she adds.
Clare is currently appearing in Yasmin Reza's 'Conversations After A Burial', with Claire Bloom and David Calder, at London's Almeida Theatre, where she earlier appeared with Dame Diana Rigg and David Suchet in 'Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf', which brought her an Olivier awards nomination.
She will also shortly be seen on ITV in a new Ruth Rendell drama, as a battered wife, and the new drama 'The Innocent' with Caroline Quentin and Paul Rhys.
