Dick Francis

Richard Stanley Francis was born on Halloween, 1920 in Wales. At the age of fifteen, Dick dropped out of Maidenhead County School and won a hunter show, therefore starting an illustrious career as a steeplechase jockey. Dick has had three main careers: Air Force pilot and airframe fitter (during the war years), jockey and novelist. In 1947, Dick married Mary Margaret Brenchly. Ten years later, he retired from racing at the age of 37 and became a racing correspondent for the London Sunday Express. Five years after that in 1962, his first novel Dead Cert was published. A clever man, Francis made a deal with his publishing company that as long as he wrote a book a year, they would keep all of his novels in print. In 1983, he is knighted with the Order of the British Empire. Although there are rumours that 10 lb Penalty will be his last book, we can always hope. Dick and his wife now live in the Cayman Islands