My father, John Noone, who has died aged 89, was a writer probably best known for his first novel, The Man With the Chocolate Egg, in which the main character, a British soldier, sits on a London bus, exhausted and disoriented, and pulls the pin out of a hand grenade.
Published in 1966, when John was just 30, the book was joint winner of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1967. He continued with his writing for 60 more years, while for many years making his living as an English lecturer at academic institutions around the world.
