Now that “Flashman” has been mentioned…

As over the decades I read the series I often considered that as George MacDonald Fraser had spent some years as a newspaperman in Saskatchewan, it was possible he based Flashman, at least in part, on this man: Alexander Roberts Dunn

Over six feet tall, upper class upbringing (Harrow), Victoria Cross won in “The Charge of the Light Brigade” and as noted in the profile provided…a right bounder and a cad.

http://www.legionmagazine.com/en/index.php/2004/01/canada-and-the-victoria-cross/