Tom Wakefield, writer; born December 13, 1935, died March 26, 1996

A MINER'S son, Tom Wakefield never forgot his roots. His working-class background provided the basis for the novels he began to write when he was nearly 40, above all in Forties Child, which took a clear-eyed look at his boyhood and his relationship with his parents, particularly his father.

A warm, funny, obstinate man, he was a born teacher and a born writer who lived for more than 30 years in the same house in the shadow of the Arsenal stadium, sharing his home for many years with a close friend, a Church Army Captain, and a notoriously difficult tabby cat called Beryl, both of whom were to feature in his writings.

It was while at school in Chadsmore that he fell under the influence of a teacher, Miss Craddock, who encouraged his enthusiasm for books. He even went to Sunday school - his parents were atheists and Tom a lifelong agnostic -simply as a means of winning books as prizes for attendance.

He originally wanted to be an actor - the young Tom was dashingly good looking - but was persuaded instead to take a teacher training course at Trent Park College in North London. He never lost a certain theatrical style of behaviour, and his dramatic talents served him well both in the classroom and when giving readings of his work. He discovered he had a vocation for teaching, particularly disadvantaged children, and was highly regarded in the profession.

Chronic back pain caused by the strain of lifting disabled children ended his teaching shortly after he was appointed head teacher of the newly opened Downsview School in Hackney Downs. His experiences there formed the material for his first book, He's Much Better, He Can Smile Now, published in 1974, but it was fiction that became his obsession and in 1977 he embarked on a trilogy of picaresque novels about a Midlands girl who embarked on a stage career, the first being Trixie Trash, Star Ascending.

In 1980 he published his most successful book, Forties Child, which won him a two-year period as Arts Council writer in residence at Lancaster University. In 1983 he won an Oppenheim Award for Literature.

A string of beautifully crafted novels about ordinary people coping with life in unexpected ways followed. Tom firmly believed there was good in people, that everyone was unique, and that authority was there to be defied. In Lot's Wife, published in 1990, love bloomed in an old people's home - Tom believed she was turned into a pillar of salt after looking back in sympathy at the plight of the people left behind - while in War Paint, published in 1993, the women of a small wartime mining community have their dreary lives transformed by the arrival of a glamorous schoolmistress. Tom's Miss Brodie was, in a typical piece of topsy-turveydom, discovered years later to have been a man.

A kenspeckle figure, well known in his community, a regular at the betting shop, he could be found in his garden shaking his fist in defiance at the morning bell rung at the nearby St Thomas's church. Tom's opinion of bishops was low. But his funeral service was held there, and the place was full of members of his extended family of friends and adopted relations.

Tom, a native of Cannock, Staffordshire, was that rare creature, a thoroughly nice human being.