Charles Chadwick CBE (31 July 1932 – 16 June 2025) was born in Swanage, Dorset, to Trevor and Marjory (nee Freeman), who were both schoolteachers; his father volunteered in Prague during the late 1930s to help run Nicholas Winton’s Czech Kindertransport. After attending Charterhouse school in Surrey, where he captained the cricket team and twice dismissed the future England captain Peter May, a fellow pupil, he did his national service with the Royal Leicesters in Korea.
There he trod on a landmine shortly after arriving, and ended up losing his lower leg. After recovering at various military hospitals he followed his younger brother William to Canada, where he studied English and French at the University of Toronto.
After graduation Charles spent nine years working for the Colonial Service in what is now Zambia, first as a district officer reviewing local civil cases, then lecturing at a staff training college in Luanshya and finally teaching administration in Lusaka.
In 1972 he left to work for the British Council, beginning in Nigeria and then spent a year in Brazil (1975-76). After a five-year spell at its London office (1976-81), he worked for the council in Canada (1981-88) and then in Poland until his retirement in 1992, when he was appointed CBE.
Following the surprise publication of It’s All Right Now, Charles had another previously rejected novel, A Chance Acquaintance, released in 2011. Three more,Letter to Sally, My Sister Julie and Josefa, could not attract an English publisher but were accepted by a German company, which translated them for the German market.
In retirement in London, Charles became a school governor and in 1994 was appointed for a short spell as regional coordinator of a European Union election observer team in South Africa.
Charles Chadwick CBE (31 July 1932 – 16 June 2025) was born in Swanage, Dorset, to Trevor and Marjory (nee Freeman), who were both schoolteachers; his father volunteered in Prague during the late 1930s to help run Nicholas Winton’s Czech Kindertransport. After attending Charterhouse school in Surrey, where he captained the cricket team and twice dismissed the future England captain Peter May, a fellow pupil, he did his national service with the Royal Leicesters in Korea.
There he trod on a landmine shortly after arriving, and ended up losing his lower leg. After recovering at various military hospitals he followed his younger brother William to Canada, where he studied English and French at the University of Toronto.
After graduation Charles spent nine years working for the Colonial Service in what is now Zambia, first as a district officer reviewing local civil cases, then lecturing at a staff training college in Luanshya and finally teaching administration in Lusaka.
In 1972 he left to work for the British Council, beginning in Nigeria and then spent a year in Brazil (1975-76). After a five-year spell at its London office (1976-81), he worked for the council in Canada (1981-88) and then in Poland until his retirement in 1992, when he was appointed CBE.
Following the surprise publication of It’s All Right Now, Charles had another previously rejected novel, A Chance Acquaintance, released in 2011. Three more,Letter to Sally, My Sister Julie and Josefa, could not attract an English publisher but were accepted by a German company, which translated them for the German market.
In retirement in London, Charles became a school governor and in 1994 was appointed for a short spell as regional coordinator of a European Union election observer team in South Africa.
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