Dick Sharples
Dick Sharples (7 June 1927 – 19 October 2015) was a British TV scriptwriter of British sitcoms. He has also written novels, plays and drama series (for both television and radio). Life and career Dick Sharples was born in Manchester. He began his career as a cartoonist and a writer for a Manchester Advertising Agency. One of the agency's customers was comedian Al Read who ran a meat pie company called H. Read and Son. Sharples wrote the tagline "potatoes and meat, simply heat" for the company's fritters. A chance meeting with a local, jobbing printer called Archie Carmichael led to Sharples writing his first novel whilst still a teenager. The Man Who Rode By Night was a 40,000-word Western, and led to Sharples being paid 21 shillings for every thousand words. One of Sharples' first television writing credits was for the 1956 ATV series Joan and Leslie, starring Harry Towb and Noel Dyson. Other early television work included writing episodes of soap opera Compact, drama series The Saint, and Dixon of Dock Green. Early screenplays included collaborating with Gerald Kelsey (one of the Joan and Leslie co-writers) on the 1961 comedy film The Golden Rabbit which starred Willoughby Goddard.