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Felixstowe Nub News delves into the life of Felixstowe born author Thomas Hinde.

Sir Thomas Willes Chitty 3rd Baronet, more commonly known by his pen name Thomas Hinde, was born on March 2 1926 in Felixstowe. He was the son of Sir Thomas Henry Willes Chitty, 2nd Baronet, a barrister, and Ethel Constance Gladstone.

He was educated at Winchester College and University College, Oxford. Shortly afterwards, he entered the Royal Navy where he served from 1944 to 1947.

After this, he briefly worked for Inland Revenue and then for Shell Petroleum Company before becoming a full time author.

In 1951, he married Susan Hopkinson, daughter of novelist Antonia White, until his death in 2014. They had four children.

He wrote under his pen name with the surname Hinde. The name belonged to Chitty's family ancestry on his mother's side. He wrote under this name to prevent upsetting his father. He became a baronet on the death of his father in 1955.

By this time, he had already made a name for himself in the literary world with his debut novel, Mr. Nicholas, being published in 1953. The novel is a portrait of a chaotic family living in suburbia. The New York Herald Tribune described it as "the best first novel ever written by a novelist of his age."

His second novel, Happy As Larry, was also met with a positive critical reaction. The novel concerned a disaffected, unemployable, aspiring writer with a failed marriage. Due to the subject matter, critics soon associated him with the Angry Young Men movement. In fact, an excerpt from Happy As Larry appeared in the paperback anthology, Protest: The Beat Generation and Angry Young Men.

Hinde published thirteen more novels before turning his hand to non-fiction. After 1980, he published books on English society, including English stately homes and garden, English court life, and the forests of Britain.

He passed away on March 7 2014 at his home in West Hoathly, West Sussex.

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