Frank Hopkinson is the author of The Joy of Pubs and the National Trust¿s book on beekeeping, and the photographer for Remarkable Village Cricket Grounds: three subjects that regularly occur in Midsomer Murders. He has worked on arable farms and hop farms, and in his final year at London University he undertook a rural housing survey on the borders of Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, and hence recognises many of the characters regularly encountered by DCI Barnaby.