RON (R.F.) DELDERFIELD

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Ron (R.F.) Delderfield, author and playwright, joined his father’s weekly newspaper, the Exmouth Chronicle, in the Twenties, later becoming editor.

 

His first play, Spark in Judea, was produced in London in 1936 and this marked the beginning of a prolific and successful writing career.

 

Another of his plays, Worm's Eye View, had a run at the Whitehall Theatre in London.

 

Following service in the RAF during World War Two, he resumed his literary career, while also running an antiques business near Budleigh Salterton, Devon - the latter business was, he said: "so that I keep in touch with ordinary types of people - my public."

 

Ron continued writing plays until 1956, when he decided to concentrate on a career as a novelist.  

 

The first novel of his new career, The Adventures of Ben Gunn (1956), was a prequel to Treasure Island, and this was followed by popular historical sagas, largely on Napoleonic themes, and family sagas, mainly set in the war and inter-war years in his native South London and his adopted Devon.  

 

These include God Is an Englishman (1970), Theirs Was the Kingdom (1971), and Give Us This Day (1973), a trilogy.  

 

His national reputation was secured after his death by the televisation of two of his best known novels, A Horseman Riding By (published in 1966 and televised in 1978) and To Serve Them All My Days (published in 1972 and televised in 1980).

 

These were set on the edge of Exmoor and the latter was based on Delderfield's schooldays at West Buckland, which became the 'Bamfylde School' of the novel.

 

Fifteen of Delderfield's plays and novels have become films or TV series.  

 

His novel The Bull Boys was inspiration behind the first Carry On film, Carry On Sergeant, and a 1961 film, On The Fiddle, starring Sean Connery, was based on his novel, Stop At A Winner.

 

He died of cancer at his home in Sidmouth, Devon, in 1972, aged 60.