Fraser, journalist, author of Flashman series dead

London, Jan 8 - Novelist George MacDonald Fraser, who served in India during the Second World War and authored the popular Flashman series of adventure stories, has died after a long battle against cancer. He was 82.

The former soldier worked as a journalist for The Herald newspaper, then known as The Glasgow Herald, for many years. He also wrote screenplays and a memoir of his experiences as an infantryman in the Burma campaign.

MacDonald Fraser, however, is best remembered for his semi-historical novels based around Sir Harry Flashman. The Flashman series is based on the bully character of Thomas Hughes' Victorian classic 'Tom Brown's Schooldays', grown up and serving as an officer in the army, fighting, drinking and womanising his way around the British Empire.

At The Glasgow Herald, he worked as a sub-editor in the features department and rose to become deputy editor. Murray Ritchie, 66, was among those taught journalism by MacDonald Fraser as a cub reporter on the Dumfries Standard in the 1960s.

The retired journalist, who was in his late teens when MacDonald Fraser took him under his wing, told The Independent: 'He used to give us lessons in how to sub-edit and how to write. He was a very respected and very considerate person and showed an interest in younger journalists. And he was a brilliant journalist. He was a superbly gifted writer, he wrote with such clarity, and was a good editor.'

Referring to MacDonald Fraser's departure from journalism in the 1960s, Ritchie added: 'I think he was quite critical of changing standards in journalism, when management took over from editors'.

(c) Indo-Asian News Service

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