This article was published in the Peterborough Evening Telegraph on 16 September 1988.
MORE than 100 people turned out to welcome international bestselling author Tom Sharpe to Peterborough.
The humorous author addressed a gathering of Peterborough writers at the city’s Great Northern Hotel.
Mr Sharpe (60) didn’t start writing commercially until he was 41 years old.
But a string of best-selling comedy books including Riotous Assembly, Blot on the Landscape [sic], and the Wilt books put him firmly into the top writers league.
Mr Sharpe explains his success away simply: “It’s just a bizarre way of looking at things. I always have at the back of my mind a measure of my own stupidity so I just write rubbish.”
After the television success of Porterhouse Blue there are plans to film Wilt.
Photo caption: Bestselling author Tom Sharpe with Northborough writer Anne Jones. (Photo: A5971/11)