The screenwriter and novelist George MacDonald Fraser died on Wednesday 2 January at the age of 82.



Quite simply one of the greats...



The BBC's report is below:



Author of Flashman stories dies



The novelist George MacDonald Fraser, author of the Flashman adventure stories, has died aged 82, his publisher has said.



The popular books saw womanising anti-hero Sir Harry Flashman, fight his way around the British Empire.



MacDonald Fraser, who was appointed an OBE in 1999, also wrote the screenplay for James Bond film Octopussy.



The Carlisle-born journalist turned author, who lived on the Isle of Man, had fought cancer for several years.



He was married and had three children.



MacDonald Fraser served as a solder in Burma and India during World War II and later rose to be deputy editor of the Glasgow Herald newspaper.



He was still working there when the first Flashman book was published in 1969.



A further 11 followed, the last in 2005.



The inspiration for Sir Harry Flashman came from the 19th century novel, Tom Brown's Schooldays, where the character features as the cowardly bully who torments the hero, Tom.



MacDonald Fraser based his tales on the idea that Flashman's "memoirs" had been unearthed in an old trunk in a Leicestershire auction room.



Despite being a vain, cowardly rogue, as well as a racist and a sexist, the character managed to play a pivotal role in many of the 19th Century's most significant events, always emerging covered in glory.



As well as Octopussy in 1983, MacDonald Fraser wrote other screenplays including The Prince and The Pauper and The Three Musketeers.



Fellow author Kingsley Amis called him "a marvellous reporter and a first-rate historical novelist".