George MacDonald Fraser

Jan 4 2008 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

IN THE old smoking rooms of our pubs and clubs, whenever mention was made of a rattling good yarn, his name loomed into view amid the thundering of hooves and the flashing of sabres, followed by some supping and the leisurely unlacing of a lady’s corset.

For, from the brilliance of his mind, sprang one of the greatest cads in British literature, Sir Harry Paget Flashman (1822-1915) – proud brute, cheat, womaniser, jibbering coward, rakehell, who rode through the stench and blood of Victorian history, but always emerged triumphant and superbly dressed to collect his totally undeserved gongs.

“Flashy” was, of course, the bully, who tormented younger boys in Thomas Hughes’s Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857). But what happened to him after he was expelled from Rugby for drunkenness?

George MacDonald Fraser found the answer in General Flashman’s memoirs, which he discovered in a Leicestershire salesroom in 1965.

This was an ingenious hoax, which fooled eminent literary critics in this country and, to a greater extent, in the USA.

It was also the basis of the 12 Flashman novels, starting with Flashman in 1969 and ending with Flashman on the March (2005).

Fraser had turned 6ft 2ins and 13 stone of blackguard into a hero, who almost became a national treasure, though by Flashman’s own admission the coarse streak in his family “showed through, generation after generation, like dung beneath a rosebush”.

As political correctness tightened its grip, Flashman flourished, despite his deplorable attitude to race, sex and any form of decency, because of Fraser’s masterstroke. The historic back-cloths to his stories were brilliantly researched. They were, in fact, a wonderful introduction to British history.

Born in Carlisle to the surgeon William Fraser and his wife, Anne Struth Donaldson, he was educated at Carlisle Grammar School and Glasgow Academy. He served with the Border Regiment during the war and then the Gordon Highlanders in the Middle East.

A career in journalism, in which he excelled, led him to him being deputy editor of the Glasgow Herald, before starting the Flashman series.

Married with three children, he settled in the Isle of Man, writing numerous books, mostly on historic themes, and the screenplay for the Bond film, Octopussy (1983). He became an OBE in 1999.

In contrast to Flashman, Fraser was a charming man of courtesy and quiet humour.

George MacDonald Fraser, writer; born April 2,1925,died January 2, 2008.