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Richard Stanley "Dick" Francis CBE FRSL (31 October 1920 – 14 February 2010) was a British steeplechase jockey and crime writer, whose novels centre around horse racing in England, while also featuring a variety of locations and occupations.
Francis was born in Coedcanlas, Pembrokeshire, Wales. Some sources report his birthplace as the inland town of Lawrenny, but at least two of his obituaries stated his birthplace as the coastal town of Tenby. His autobiography says that he was born at his maternal grandparents' farm at Coedcanlas on the estuary of the River Cleddau, roughly a mile north-west of Lawrenny. He was the son of a jockey and stable manager and he grew up in Berkshire, England. He left school at 15 without any qualifications, with the intention of becoming a jockey and became a trainer in 1938.
During World War II, Francis volunteered, hoping to join the cavalry. Instead, he served in the Royal Air Force, working as ground crew and later piloting fighter and bomber aircraft, including the Spitfire and Hurricane. He said in an interview that he spent much of his six years in the Air Force in Africa.
In October 1945, he met Mary Margaret Brenchley (17 June 1924 – 30 September 2000), at a cousin's wedding. In most interviews, they say that it was love at first sight. (Francis has some of his characters fall similarly in love within moments of meeting, as in the novels Flying Finish, Knockdown, and The Edge.) Their families were not entirely happy with their engagement, but D ick and Mary were married in June, 1947, in London. She had earned a degree in English and French from London University at the age of 19, was an assistant stage manager and later worked as a publisher's reader. She also became a pilot, and her experiences flying contributed to many novels, including Flying Finish, Rat Race, and Second Wind. She contracted polio while pregnant with their first child, a plight dramatized to a greater extent in the novel Forfeit, which Francis called one of his favorites. They had two sons, Merrick and Felix (born 1953).
In the 1980s, Francis and his wife moved to Florida; in 1992, they moved to the Cayman Islands, where Mary died of a heart attack in 2000. In 2006, Francis had a heart bypass operation; in 2007 his right leg was amputated. He died of natural causes on 14 February 2010 at his Caribbean home in Grand Cayman, survived by both sons.
After leaving the RAF in 1946, Francis became a celebrity in the world of British National Hunt racing. He won over 350 races, becoming champion jockey in the 1953–54 season.
Shortly after becoming a professional, he was offered the job of first jockey to Vivian Smith, Lord Bicester, a wonderful position.
From 1953 to 1957 he was jockey to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. His most famous moment as a jockey came while riding the Queen Mother's horse, Devon Loch, in the 1956 Grand National when the horse inexplicably fell when close to winning the race. Decades later, Francis considered losing that race his greatest regret and called it "a disaster of massive proportions."
Like most jump jockeys, Francis had his share of injuries. Unlike most, he was hospitalized at the age of 12 when a pony fell on him and broke his jaw and nose. A career featuring broken bones and damaged organs found its way into many novels, whose narrators suffer a variety of damaged bodies. In 1957, after one too many serious falls, the Queen Mother's adviser, Lord Abergavenny, advised him that she wanted him to retire from racing for her.
Francis wrote more than 40 international best-sellers. His first book was his autobiography The Sport of Queens (1957) which led to him becoming the racing correspondent for London's Sunday Express newspaper, remaining in the job for 16 years. In 1962, he published his first thriller, Dead Cert, set in the world of racing. Subsequently he regularly produced a novel a year for the next 38 years, missing only 1998 (during which he published a short-story collection). Although all his books were set against a background of horse racing, his male heroes held a variety of jobs including artist (In the Frame and To the Hilt), private investigator (Odds Against, Whip Hand, Come to Grief, Under Orders—all starring injured ex-jockey Sid Halley, one of only two heroes used more than once), pilot, artist, wine merchant and many others. All the novels are narrated by the hero, who in the course of the story discovers himself to be more resourceful, brave, tricky, than he had thought, and usually finds a certain salvation for himself as well as bestowing it on others. Details of other people's occupations fascinated Francis, and the reader finds himself or herself immersed in the mechanics of such things as photography, accountancy, the gemstone trade, restaurant service on transcontinental trains—but always in the interests of the plot. Dysfunctional families were a subject which he exploited particularly well (Reflex, a baleful grandmother, Hot Money, a multi-millionaire father and serial ex-husband, Decider, the related co-owners of a racecourse).
Many of Francis' books are featured in volumes of Reader's Digest Condensed Books.
More info:
Code:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5561.Dick_Francis |
Sid Halley Series
Dick Francis - Odds Against (read by Geoffrey Howard)
Dick Francis - Whip Hand (read by Simon Prebble)
Dick Francis - Come To Grief (read by Simon Prebble)
Dick Francis - Under Orders (read by Martin Jarvis)
Dick Francis - Refusal (read by Martin Jarvis)
Kit Fielding Series
Dick Francis - Break In (read by Simon Prebble)
Dick Francis - Bolt (read by Simon Prebble)
Non-Series
Dick Francis - Bloodline (read by Martin Jarvis)
Dick Francis - To The Hilt (read by Tony Britton)
Dick Francis - Proof (read by Tony Britton)
Dick Francis - Dead Heat (read by Martin Jarvis)
Dick Francis - Dead Cert (read by Simon Prebble)
Dick Francis - Reflex (read by Tony Britton)
Dick Francis - Blood Sport (read by Simon Prebble)
Dick Francis - Shattered (read by Tony Britton)
Dick Francis - Longshot (read by David Case)
Dick Francis - Hot Money (read by Tony Britton)
Dick Francis - Nerve (read by Tony Britton)
Dick Francis - Crossfire (read by Martin Jarvis)
Dick Francis - Straight (read by Simon Prebble)
Dick Francis - The Edge (read by Simon Prebble)
Dick Francis - Decider (read by Simon Prebble)
Dick Francis - 10 LB. Penalty (read by David Case)
Dick Francis - Banker (read by Simon Prebble)
Dick Francis - Comeback (read by David Case)
Dick Francis - For Kicks (read by Tony Britton)
Dick Francis - The Danger (read by Tony Britton)
Dick Francis - Wild Horses (read by Tony Britton)
Dick Francis - Bonecrack (read by Tony Britton)
Dick Francis - Silks (read by Martin Jarvis)
Dick Francis - Twice Shy (read by Simon Prebble, Steven Crossley)
Dick Francis - Second Wind (read by Michael Page)
Dick Francis - Driving Force (read by Simon Prebble)
Dick Francis - Risk (read by Geoffrey Howard)
Dick Francis - High Stakes (read by Tony Britton)
Dick Francis - Even Money (read by Martin Jarvis)
Dick Francis - Flying Finish (read by David Case)
Dick Francis - Smokescreen (read by Tony Britton)
Dick Francis - Forfeit (read by Tony Britton)
Dick Francis - In The Frame (read by Tony Britton)
Dick Francis - Enquiry (read by Tony Britton)
Dick Francis - Rat Race (read by Tony Britton)
Dick Francis - Knockdown (read by David Case)
Dick Francis - Slay Ride (read by David Case)
Dick Francis - Field Of Thirteen (read by Tony Britton)
Dick Francis - Trial Run (read by Tony Britton)
Dick Francis - Biography: Sport Of Queens (read by Tony Britton)
Code:
https://rapidgator.net/folder/3234270/Dick%20Francis.html |
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