He was born in
Bulwell,
Nottinghamshire, England, in 1919 and educated at High Pavement School, Stanley Road, Nottingham, and later at
University College Nottingham. Middleton started writing while at university and in 1958 published
A Short Answer. Alongside his work as an author, he taught English at
High Pavement Grammar School for many years. In 1974, his novel
Holiday won the
Booker Prize. In 2008,
Her Three Wise Men was published, his 44th novel and the last to be published during his lifetime. Middleton was an accomplished organist, playing regularly at St Mark's Methodist Church on Ravensworth Road in Bulwell and stepping in to cover others, often at
Mansfield Road Baptist Church in Nottingham. He was also a fine watercolourist and contributed his own artwork to the covers of the 1994 novel
Catalysts and the
festschrift Stanley Middleton At Eighty. In 2006, a reporter for
The Sunday Times sent the first chapters of
Holiday to a number of publishers and literary agents as a journalistic stunt. Almost all rejected it. The actor
Peter Bowles was taught by Middleton while a pupil at High Pavement. In 1980 when Bowles was the subject of the popular TV programme
This Is Your Life, Middleton appeared as a guest on the programme. Middleton was married to Margaret Welch from 1951 until his death; the couple had two daughters, Penny and Sarah. Towards the end of his life, he suffered from cancer, and died in a nursing home on 25 July 2009, at the age of 89. It has been revealed that Middleton refused an
OBE in 1979. This came to light following a
freedom of information request by the
BBC. He did not feel that he should be honoured simply for doing what he regarded as his job. ==Bibliography==