Ted Willis

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This download is the only extract the B B C has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley. Ted, you are a Londoner. Yes, born in Tottenham. What was it your very first ambition to be? Oh, a writer. Really? Early on? From the very beginning, yeah.

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No idea at all. Can't explain it, but I always wanted to be. I was always scribbling on the corner of the kitchen table. And when you were at school?

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Well, my headmaster, when I told him my ambition, said, No, don't do that, son, learn a good trade.

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I went in about twenty jobs trying to learn a good trade and never succeeding. What sort of jobs? Oh, I was a vehicle builder, a capstan operator, a bakelite moulder, a shoe shop assistant. What was the longest you stayed in one job? Oh, I think as a vehicle builder, for London Transport. You couldn't settle to anything? No.

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Now this restlessness was, I believe, so extreme that at one point you took to the roads and and tramped about the country. Oh yes, I was a tramp for about a year, yes.

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Were you doing any writing at all?

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Uh no. Uh but uh it was during that period that I got my first break. Why you were you call it that? Yes. I wrote a rather descriptive and florid article about the Yorkshire Dales.

Ted Willis1:03

Yeah.

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Sent it off to a m magazine.

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And I got a cheque for thirty shillings, and so I was a professional writer at last. Was that the the stabilizing influence you were looking for, you think? Uh no, not really. Um I don't know whether I'd ever gone on with it, but I went into the army, I got called up, the war broke out.

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I think the army settled me down because it was a job you couldn't ask for your cards, you couldn't walk out on. What did you do in the army? Uh well I was a fusilier. I was an acting unpaid local provisional lance corporal for a time. And then I had a bit of luck. I got uh transferred to, or seconded to, whatever term you use, to the

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Army Kinema Corporation and I began to write documentary films.

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The first film I ever wrote was called How to Look After Your Brengum. Bit a romantic title.

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And when you were demobilised? And when I was demobilised, I met a lot of directors and film producers and so on in the army, and I decided to have a crack as a professional writer. And I've been such ever since. But you began, what, still doing documentaries? Oh, yes, I kept on doing documentaries. In fact, for the first few years, all I did was documentaries. You were also writing for Unity Theatre, I believe? Oh, yes, I wrote about six plays for Unity.

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The Unity was very far out on the left wing at that time. Were you thinking of yourself uh as a propaganda writer? Were you writing uh as a protest?

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Uh well yes, I think I was to some extent and I think also that m my work was marred to some extent by this. It had a lot of good qualities I think but

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I think it was a bit too much obvious propaganda in it. Mm-hmm.

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This was giving you a very valuable experience. Oh yes, it was m I owe Unity a tremendous amount for this.

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And then you'll progress from documentary films to features. Yes, that's it.

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One of the first features I ever wrote was called A Boy, a Girl and a Bike, once more back in the Yorkshire Dales and one of the starlets in that picture was Diana Dawes.

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I had a great time riding a tandem round the Yorkshire Dales with Miss Dawes.

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Well, then came your first West End play.

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Yes, no trees in the street. How did that do? Uh it was a ghastly flop. Big success on tour.

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Came into London, flopped after ten days, the critics trampled over it with hobnail boots.

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Then it went out on tour again for two years and was tremendously successful.

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When did you start writing for television?

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Um

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Oh, very early, about nineteen forty eight or forty nine, I think.

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Uh I was connected with a series called The Handlebar with Jimmy Edwards and Humphrey Lestock.

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Starring I was called in to try and help with the scripts, but it had the kiss of death on and nothing ever came of it.

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I really started seriously, I suppose, about nineteen fifty four, with a series called The Pattern of Marriage.

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and Dixon of Duck Green shortly followed after that.

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In nearly all your writing there's quite a strong streak of documentary, isn't there?

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Uh yes, I think this is partly due to early training in documentary films and partly also because it's the way I like to write. I like to go and find the story. Yes, you you you would like to see for yourself

Ted Willis4:04

Yeah.

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Uh you'd rather write from fact than from imagination. For example, I n I know you joined the army again in peacetime just to know what it felt like for a script. That's right, I'm the only man I think has been called up twice for the army.

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And then I I I've been on the Monte Carlo Rally to find a story and crashed on the ice in the French Alps. I've been as an emigrant to Australia.

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Just to know what it felt like?

Ted Willis4:29

Yeah.

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Just to get the experience.

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There was one film script of yours that had an enormous effect on your career, the Blue Lamp.

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Yes, now this was another thing. I went down to the east end of London. I spent about six weeks with the police riding around in squad cars and going on patrol and so on. And of course the character of P C George Dixon emerged there. Yes. Now in the blue lamp P C George Dixon was killed, wasn't he? That's right. He's the only policeman who's ever come back from his own funeral. He was reborn.

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uh in a discussion between myself and Ronnie Wardman.

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A few years later.

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How many Dixon of Doc Green stories have there been on television now? Uh well by the end of this series there'll be 201. Have you written them all?

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Yes, uh I've well, I've written personally about a hundred and fifty of them and I've been closely associated with the rest.

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And now you've decided not to write any more Dixon of Doc Green scripts. Yes, reluctantly. But I feel that I've taken it as far as I can go and I'd like to do other things.

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But uh

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I owe a great deal to Dixon of Dock Green and to Jack Warner, the star of the show. It's been a wonderful thing for the last eight years.

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I'm very proud of the fact that it's the longest running series on television.

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What do you want to do instead?

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I think I want to concentrate on plays and films and much more single-shot television things, if you know what I mean. Yes. Now, practically all your writing has been about working people, the people you were brought up amongst. Now, you're a very successful man, a wealthy man, for a writer, I add the qualification. Is it possible to live up to your income without losing touch with the people you write about? Well, I'm glad you made that qualification, Roy.

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Well, I I think this is always a danger. Uh I was relieved recently. I've been

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doing the research for a new pilot script for a T V series based on a taxi man.

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Uh Sid James is going to play the lead in this. And I in the course of this I've been going out and sitting in cab shelters and driving around and talking to cabmen. And I'm rather relieved to find that

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It wasn't difficult to get on terms with them again. I haven't really got out of touch with these people. Yes. It was f in in fear of that, I believe, that the getting out of touch, that you turned down some very profitable Hollywood office in the past. Yes, I've turned down three or four, because I don't think I could write away from my roots.

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How do you write? Are you methodical? Do you work regular hours?

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I I think I'm pretty methodical. I don't work regular hours. I I work much more in spasms and bursts. Once the thing is really coming good, then I like to stay with it until I've got it out of my system. Routine jobs. Do you like to work against a deadline?

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Uh yes, a deadline is a good pressure for a writer, I think.

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Apart from this taxi series for Sir James, what what else are you working on at the moment? Well, I haven't completely deserted the police. I'm doing a series for the other channel, uh called The Case Book of Sergeant Cork, about a Victorian detective. I've just completed a new stage play, which is going to be done later this year.

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I got a new film to do.

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Uh I've got plenty on my plate. That sounds like it.

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Have you any one big personal ambition?

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Yes, quite definitely. I'd like to have

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A serious play which was successful in the West End. The theatre you'll find the most rewarding medium to work in.

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Yes, I find them all rewarding, but I think if I had to choose I'd choose the theatre.