Early Life and Career
Dexter was born in Stamford, Lincolnshire, and was educated at Stamford School, where his brother, John Dexter, had been before him. After completing his National Service with the Royal Corps of Signals he read classics at Christ's College, Cambridge, graduating in 1953 and receiving an honorary Masters Degree in 1958.
In 1954, he started his teaching career in the East Midlands, becoming assistant classics master at Wyggeston School, Leicester. A post at Loughborough Grammar School followed, before he took up the position of senior classics teacher at Corby Grammar School, Northamptonshire, in 1959.
In 1966, he was forced by the onset of deafness to retire from teaching, and took up the post of Senior Assistant Secretary at the University of Oxford Delegacy of Local Examinations (UODLE) in Oxford – a job he held until his retirement in 1988.
Dexter featured prominently in the BBC programme "How to Solve a Cryptic Crossword" as part of the Time Shift series broadcast in November 2008 in which he recounted some of the crossword clues solved by Morse.
Read more about this topic: Colin Dexter
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