Dramatic exit for writer Playwright's dramatic exit

The rage of the late playwright John Osborne was symbolically echoed by the elements at his burial - a howling snowstorm - in a Shropshire graveyard on Saturday.

Details emerged yesterday of the private ceremony held at St George's church, Clun, the small town in which Mr Osborne had lived for about eight years with his fifth wife Helen.

The playwright died of a heart attack on Christmas Eve aged 65. He had achieved renown by creating a new style of "kitchen-sink drama" with his 1956 attack on British middle-class values, Look Back In Anger.

Mourners were led by his widow Helen Dawson, a journalist, but his daughter Nolan, whom he once described as insolently smug and insufferably suburban, was not present.

The acting world was represented by the writer Charles Wood, who created the television drama Tumbledown, the actors Robert and Edward Fox, and Peter Egan, who starred in Dejavu, Osborne's 1992 sequel to Look Back In Anger. In an emotional address, Mr Wood told the 120 mourners that Osborne would be deeply missed; his romantic and loving nature had been misunderstood.

The Rev Graham Dowell, said:"It was a very simple and private affair with a few friends. There will probably be a memorial service in London but details have not been finalised."