R.D. Wingfield 1928-2007

Novelist and radio dramatist, R.D. Wingfield, creator of the Inspector Frost series, has died at the age of 79.

There is an obituary in The Times and one by Mike Ripley in The Guardian.

Rodney was less than enthusiastic about the television adaptation of his work, though he always insisted: "I have nothing against David Jason as Frost at all, he just isn't my Frost." He liked Jason as a comedy actor in such vehicles as Only Fools and Horses, but felt that along with the choice of actor had gone a softening of the dark humour essential as a safety valve for policemen investigating horrendous cases.

While primetime television could accommodate exchanges such as this, with a doctor - "I'd guess from the obstruction in his throat that he probably choked on his own vomit"/ "Better than choking on someone else's vomit, I suppose" - the author regretted the loss of the tougher style of the books, as in this, addressed to a queasy young copper in A Touch of Frost: "Reminds me of the time when I was a bobby on the beat and I had to pull this stiff out of the canal. He'd been dead a bloody long time but had only just popped up to the surface. I grabbed his arms to pull him out and his bloody arms came off. I was left holding the damn things while he sank to the bottom again."