Anthony Sharp

Educated at a local grammar school in London, I then went up to Oxford as the Organ Scholar of Lincoln College, sharing tutorials with my contemporary and fellow Londoner, Dudley Moore, who had won The Organ Scholarship at Magdalen College. While Dudley's career blossomed into great achievements, fame and fortune, mine struggled for survival in a whirlpool of disappointment and self-inflicted disasters. There were a few compensations in the form of TV appearances and concert hall recitals on London's South Bank. Yet my unhappy stint as University Organist back at Oxford could hardly compare with the depravities of London night clubs where, from the piano stool, I could survey the antics of 'grown' men and women.

If you like, have a peep at my blog: www.anthonysharpauthor.blogspot.com

 

Little wonder, then, that I should one day enjoy writing humorous, highly individual paperbacks in a backwater of Spain, and to hell with it all. Most of my earlier novels were under my more commonly used name of Tony Sharp.

It was many years before I began writing books, having busied myself with abundant music gigs and pleasures of the flesh. Readers interested in life stories should read my autobiography ‘My Steinway Blues’ and give themselves a laugh and perhaps a suggestion of a tear or two. I have had a pretty full life, but a writer should only say ‘so much’ – if you get the picture. Imagination on the reader’s part will do the rest.

And it is imagination and an open mind which I believe to be vital for a real appreciation of my other books: My first novel ‘The Guv’nor’, for instance, features a black God in the guise of Sammy Davis Jnr, a sprinkling of well-known characters including Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana, and deals with questions of hypocrisy, good and evil, true happiness and a special mission for Charles.

This mission is taken up by Prince Charles in the sequel to ‘The Guv’nor’ in my book ‘Now Or Never’. The Prince is joined by Lewis Hamilton and President Obama, and together they formulate a new world venture simply called HUMANITY. It’s a huge success. The fact Osama Bin Laden has been eliminated in reality by The President’s men should not prevent the reader enjoying this book to the full.

‘The House of Baghdad’, I suppose, is a zany but I trust exciting romp with the exploits and narrow escapes of an ex-dictator and his bodyguard, Brazilian society and the mad machinations of a new political system in Iraq, all recorded in the TV broadcasting of ‘The House of Baghdad’ which becomes the most successful soap opera of all time.

‘Lie Back & Think of England’ might well be considered by some as my ‘right wing’, politically incorrect novel, though in reality the first half is merely a twisted nightmare an old-fashioned Englishman experiences in his bed before the outbreak of World War 2. The latter event, to my hero’s mind, is nothing - compared with the future of little old England. The hero, Fred Pike, is based upon my own late father who fought in The Great War in Gallipoli and who survived that terrible battle. I believe he would approve of this book and readily identify with Fred Pike who kills an intruder in his house with his First World War bayonet, and buries the body in the back garden.

‘To Mama With Love’ is a completely different story, involving a successful Jewish dress-designer who marries her German lover – a powerful arms manufacturer - and survives a necessary delay in his return while Governments and MI6 flush out his company moles who try to do dirty deals with dangerous Middle Eastern businessmen. Two wonderful children aside (Adam and Sally), the heroine, Amanda, experiences an horrendous physical attack upon her by a third child, Peter, who brings shame upon the whole family. But the inevitable demise of Peter is followed by Amanda’s recovery and Adam’s publication of his heartfelt book ‘To Mama With Love’… ‘Um, an innocent enough nom de plume, I think, Adam. Was Anthony Sharp one of your more eccentric friends from Oxford days?’

I will shortly be publishing a collection of short stories which I read live some years ago on Coastline Radio in Southern Spain. The book will be entitled ‘Some Silly Stories’. Silly they may well be, but some of them happen to be true.

Happy reading.

Anthony Sharp