For over thirty years I was lucky enough to be paid to create stories and write scripts for shows that counted their audiences in the millions. I’ve put words into the mouths of characters that were loved - and sometimes hated - by vast numbers of people in the UK and beyond.

I’ve written for many different shows, but my name is associated with two in particular: EastEnders on TV, and The Archers on radio. 

For readers outside the UK - The Archers is a radio serial set in a fictional village called Ambridge, somewhere in middle England. It has been running for over seventy years. EastEnders, now approaching its fortieth birthday, is a continuing TV drama series that follows a group of people living in and around fictional Albert Square, in the East End of London.  It exploded onto UK TV screens in 1985, and my first episode of the show was screened on BBC1 in May 1987, very soon after my first episodes of The Archers had gone out on BBC Radio 4. Between then and my last episode of The Archers in 2020 I wrote more Ambridge episodes than I can count, and somewhere north of one hundred and thirty episodes of EastEnders, most under my name, some under pen names. 

Several of the EastEnders episodes were ‘specials’ that regular viewers might remember.  A two-hander in Portugal, where Phil bullied Lisa into handing over her baby: an early example of a popular drama exploring the issue of coercive control.   The day of Frank Butcher’s funeral, where Peggy and Pat, ancient rivals, came to blows (literally) over which of them he’d loved the most.  And the episode I’m most proud of, one I wrote very early on, in the late eighties, a time when open homophobia was rife, where Colin and his boyfriend gave each other an affectionate goodnight peck on the lips.  The tabloids next morning turned purple with rage.  Many years later, in 2015, a young writer, a Masters’ student in one of my classes, having Googled my name, came up to me after class and asked what all the fuss had been about.  I could only agree with him.

I’d been away from The Archers for many years when in 2015 Sean O’Connor - the new boss of the show - got in touch to tell me he was working on a long-running coercive control story and asking if I might consider going back. The law in the UK was about to change to recognise coercive control as a form of domestic violence and the story couldn’t have been more timely. The story of Rob and Helen, always guided by research and the detailed advice of experts, unfolded almost in real time. Slowly, inexorably, we witnessed Rob strip away Helen’s sense of self. It gripped the nation. People who had never listened to the show before tuned in and had an opinion.

I wrote for many other shows too. Heartbeat, a cop show set in the sixties in picturesque North Yorkshire, that had a chocolate-box exterior concealing a centre that was anything but soft. Casualty and Holby City, the BBC’s sister medical dramas. Silent Witness, a show about a forensic pathologist, that took the audience to some very dark places. Maisie Raine, a police drama headed by a down-to-earth female cop. And Eldorado, a show created by Tony Holland and Julia Smith, the creative brains behind EastEnders, set in a community in Spain, exploring what united and divided the characters, representatives of several different nations of the EU. Audiences didn’t take to it and it ran for only a year. I wonder now if it was ahead of its time.

I enjoyed writing for all these shows, but what I enjoyed most - what I loved - was working with other people on creating stories that would go out to millions.  Sitting in windowless rooms, laughing, shouting, agreeing, disagreeing, eating too many biscuits, drinking too much coffee, the whole messy business of making it all up.  I loved the anarchy of story conferences.  I loved the precision of script meetings.  I loved writing my drafts.  I adored witnessing directors and actors working their magic on my scripts.  And when all was done, I enjoyed sitting on the sofa at home with family and friends watching the TV as my stuff went out. 

I can’t imagine a more privileged way to spend a working life.