Robert Barnard was born and brought up in Essex. After reading English at Balliol College, Oxford, he worked for a time for the Fabian Society, and in 1961 became lecturer in English at the University of New England, in New South Wales. He taught in Norway for seventeen years from 1966, and in 1983 came back to Britain to write full time. As well as nearly thirty mysteries, he has written books on Dickens, Agatha Christie and a history of English Literature. He and his wife now live in Leeds.
Robert Barnard
I was born in Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex, but brought up in Brightlingsea, near Colchester, where I went to school I was one of those fortunate people who do better in examinations than anyone expects, and to my own and my teachers’ surprise I got an Exhibition to Balliol College from the Colchester Grammar School I went up to read History, soon realized my mistake, and changed to English. I graduated with that stand-by of mediocrity, a good Second in 1959, and went to work for a year in the bookshop of the Fabian Society. I later worked briefly (having decided that the grind of politics was not for me) at a College of Further Education in Accrington, before going to lecture at the University of New England, in northern New South Wales in 1961.
The picture of this university in my first crime novel, Death of an Old Goat, convinces many people that I loathed Australia, but that is not really true: the central character in that book is me in my first months in the country, and his reactions are pretty much mine, but they modified considerably later, under the influence of sun and alcohol. I married there in 1963, greatly enjoyed the external teaching which was a feature of that university, something of a pioneer in adult education to degree level, and it was mainly because my wife insisted she wanted to come to Europe to live that I applied for and got a job at the University of Bergen, on the West coast of Norway. Norway was, and remains, my ideal place to live – the most beautiful country I have ever known, the most peaceful and the most welcoming. I would have remained there for the rest of my life if I had not begun writing crime novels which were mostly set in Britain.
My father wrote romantic women’s love stories, so it was natural I should try my hand at fiction. It was two years after my arrival in Bergen, in 1968, that I had my first shot, a comic novel centred on a fearsome woman politician, based on Mrs Thatcher, then Shadow Minister of Education. It folded in the third chapter. Crime had always been my favourite reading for relaxation, so I tried a crime novel set in Bergen and managed to keep it going until its conclusion. I had a kind letter of rejection from Elizabeth Walter, then crime editor at Collins, expressing a wish to see my next. A doctorate on Dickens interrupted, but eventually Old Goat got finished and was accepted. My life has been exceedingly pleasant ever since. I enjoyed teaching literature at a university level, but in crime writing I had found something even more stimulating and pleasurable.
I became Professor of English at the University of Tromso, the world’s most northerly university (setting of Death in a Cold Climate) in 1976, but I left there reluctantly to return to Britain in 1983, the lure being the prospect of being a full-time crime writer. I could do this because my books had been solidly if unspectacularly successful in the United States. I have since written about a book a year, occasionally two, as well as books on Agatha Christie and a History of English Literature. I have a pseudonym, Bernard Bastable, for historical crime novels, notably two about Mr Mozart – Mozart who stayed in England after his 1764 visit, growing old, querulous about how much more famous and respected he would have been if he had returned to Austria, and indulging mildly in detective work for noble and royal patrons.
I live with my wife, dog and cat in Leeds, holidaying in Mediterranean countries, visit America when possible for ego-boosts, and generally feel that life is good. Could anyone ask for more?