Colin Watson
1920 – 1983
Colin Watson was a mystery ad thriller author from Croydon, London that was best known for the “Flaxborough Chronicles” series of novels. The bestselling author was one of the best writers of his time even though he has largely been forgotten in the current times. Watson was a man known for his modesty, most likely because he grew up in humble settings, He was born in Croydon and went to Whitgift School that had been founded by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1956 to offer medical care and education for the needy and poor from the Lambeth and Croydon parishes. In 1937, while he was but a teenager, he got a job at the “Boston Guardian” where he was a cub reporter. It was while he was working as a journalist in Lincolnshire and the small towns around the place that he got the inspiration he would later use in the making of his popular Flaxborough series. The town of Flaxborough is a composite of Boston and other small villages around it such as Horncastle and Sleaford. Watson published his debut novel “Coffin, Scarcely Used” in 1958, and never looked back since going on to write twelve titles by the time of his death in 1983.