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The late Reginald Hill was crime novelist who created Superintendent Andy Dalziel and Sergeant Peter Pascoe in his first novel, A Clubbable Woman. He died on 12 January 2012 at his home near Ravenglass in Cumbria at the age of 75 after fighting cancer for a year.

Born Reginald Charles Hill in Hartlepool, Durham, on 3 April 1936, he was the son of Hartlepool United footballer Reg Hill, who moved his family to Cumbria when his young son was aged three.

Hill was educated at Carlisle Grammar School and served with the Border Regiment in Göttingen, Germany, for his national service. After studying English at St Catherine's College, Oxford, he became a teacher and lecturer.

It was while working full-time at teacher-training at Doncaster College, that Reginald began publishing novels. He started at Doncaster College of Further Education in 1967 and eventually rose to the level of Senior Lecturer. Then, in 1980 he retired from salaried work in order to devote himself full-time to writing.

He produced 18 novels in the 1970s plus many short stories and a TV play; he also became a full-time writer in 1981.

Dalziel and Pascoe starred in a TV pilot featuring comedians Hale and Pace in 1993 but it was the later BBC series starring Warren Clarke and Colin Buchanan that everyone (thankfully) remembers.

Hill was the recipient of many awards, including Gold and Diamond Daggers from the Crime Writers’ Association. In 1995 he won the CWA's Cartier Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement.

Reginald Hill lived in Doncaster for 21 years.

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