Artist and writer, born in Calcutta, India, son of a professional soldier. Was educated partly at Denston College, Staffordshire, then in 1939 went to Cambridge University. Army service interrupted his education, but he returned to Cambridge to gain a degree in mechanical sciences, then joined Cable and Wireless. From the mid-1950s Hitchcock began to paint in oils, at first Surrealistic Biblical and autobiographical works, by the 1960s abstracts. Through that decade he showed often in London and Oxford. As a writer he made his name with the 1969 novel Percy, a satire on transplant surgery, which was successfully filmed two years later. Nine more published novels and some television and radio plays followed. Hitchcock’s paintings of the 1970s and 1980s returned to narrative themes.