A TELEVISION and radio writer whose achievements were overshadowed when he was jailed for child indecency charges has died in Thailand, aged 70.

Alick Rowe was one of the most distinguished alumni of Hereford Cathedral School who left as the self-styled ‘Lord High Everything’ then returned, via Cambridge, as a teacher before his writing took him to the top.

Mr Rowe died in Asia on October 30 and post-mortem tests have been carried out. It is thought he suffered a heart attack soon after returning from an engagement to his apartment in Chiang Mai.

Brought up in Hereford, Mr Rowe spent his formative years at what is now the Commercial pub where he said his childhood imagination was first stirred by watching the “comings and goings” on Commercial Road.

It was at the Cathedral School that Mr Rowe first made his mark as captain of school, captain of rugby, senior under officer of the CCF, leading actor and president of six societies.

Within a few years, he was back at HCS with a newly acquired teaching qualification to take English classes and head the drama department.

But the talent obvious in his spare time authorship was enough to inspire a permanent and prolific career move that put him in the top rank of Britain’s TV and radio writers with a BAFTA award win in 1992.

Seven years later, Mr Rowe was jailed for 12 months amid intense publicity, having admitted child indecency charges.

Mr Rowe continued to work on his writing on his release. He was living in Thailand at the time of his death.