Background

Peter Tinniswood was born on December 21, 1936, in Liverpool, United Kingdom. According to one interview, his father was a newspaper compositor, but, in another, he claimed he had gained his mastery of northern character and dialogue by hiding under the counter of the family dry-cleaning business and listening to the customers.

Education

Tinniswood was educated in Sale Boys' Grammar School. He went to the University of Manchester, hoping to get into journalism.

Career

Peter's first real job was as an insurance salesman in Vienna, an interlude he looked back on with unexpected nostalgia. The start in journalism came on the Sheffield Star in 1958, alongside his first efforts at comedy. He chipped in gags and sketches to radio comics of the day, and, in 1962-1964, formed, with David Nobbs, one of the journalistic partnerships which kept "That Was the Week" supplied with material.

Around 1967, he took six months off to write a novel. It was a bad time, he said later. He and his first wife were living in a grim little flat in Cardiff, with no money and a baby on the way. But the novel, "A Touch Of Daniel" (1968), was a Book Society Choice, and the film rights were bought by the Boulting Brothers. Tinniswood followed up its success with two further novels, deploying the same extended northern family haunted by the lugubrious Uncle Mort, and kept more or less viable by the tireless, put-upon Carter Brandon.

The Boultings' film never materialized, but the Carter Brandon saga formed the basis of "I Didn't Know You Cared" (BBC), which remains Tinniswood's longest-running television series. "The Brigadier Down Under" (1983) introduced a cricket-lover known simply as the Brigadier, and also a more inventive, even fantastic, line in happenstance. The same character presided over the even taller tall stories of Tales From The Long Room, which brought to fulfillment Tinniswood's passion for cricket.

"Stoker Leishman's Diaries" was an excursion into serious, not to say tragic, drama, curiously undervalued at the time; Leishman was a member of Scott's last, ill-fated expedition to the South Pole. "With The Home Front," Tinniswood moved to ITV and returned to the rich pickings of northern family life. But he continued to turn out novels, a score of them in the end, some related to his broadcast work, and made one or two forays into the theatre, most successfully for Alan Ayckbourn in Scarborough. But it was radio drama which increasingly attracted and rewarded him in later life.

Knowing that he was happiest when working, BBC producers continued to commission new work, and some of his most vital plays now emerged, such as "Croak, Croak, Croak" or - rather ironically - "The Last Obit."

Achievements

• Peter Tinniswood was an English writer notable for his prolific work in radio drama. He also achieved success in film, television, and novels. His radio play "The Village Fete" earned a Giles Cooper award in 1987. The Tinniswood Award is named in memory of Tinniswood and was established by the Society of Authors and the Writers' Guild of Great Britain.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Call It a Canary

    (The end of the 60s - Carter's wife has left him, but can ...)

    1985
  • A Touch of Daniel 1968
  • Mog 1970
  • I Didn't Know You Cared 1973
  • Uncle Mort's North Country 1986
  • The Brigadier in Season 1984
  • Tales from Witney Scrotum 1987
  • Stirk of Stirk 1974
  • Home Front 1982
  • Tales From a Long Room 1981
  • Hayballs 1989

Personality

Peter was a writer with a finely-tuned ear for the humorous moments of everyday life.

Physical Characteristics: Tinniswood was diagnosed with oral cancer in 1995. It was the result of 40 years of pipe smoking. After four years of treatment, he had radical surgery to remove his larynx and some of his tongue, resulting in the loss of his voice. He subsequently had an electronic voice-box fitted.

Connections

Peter was married twice. His first marriage ended, and he married Liz Goulding. That also failed, but, in his last months, Peter moved back with her, and she looked after him. He had four children from his first marriage.

Wife:

Liz Goulding

References

• Contemporary Authors New Revision Series, vol. 212
  2011