TV Writer Podcast 044 – John Finch (A Family At War, Sam, Coronation Street)

This week we are proud to welcome the creator of some of the UK’s finest and highest-rated TV series of the 1970s, recipient of the Best Series Writer award by the Writers Guild of Great Britain, writer-author-series creator John Finch!

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John Finch was born in Liverpool during the Depression. When his father disappeared, he moved with his mother to a mining community in Yorkshire. Life was tough, and by the time he left school at the age of 14 he had been to 12 schools, including an orphanage.

At the outbreak of war, he joined the Merchant Navy at the age of 16 and sailed from Liverpool in 1941. He served as a sparks on a freighter, a tanker, a troop ship, and a rescue tug before being medically discharged in 1944.

He worked various jobs upon returning from the war, gradually moving toward writing as a career. In this time, he wrote for various magazines such as Illustrated and Picture Post, with occasional contributions to the BBC, and his first play, the first in television to have an industrial setting, was transmitted in 1958.

In 1960, he became the first trainee writer to be contracted to write Coronation Street, now the world’s longest-running TV soap opera, and later became editor and producer. He went on to became Granada’s most prolific writer and created, wrote and edited many of the company’s longest-running serials and series. These included the 52-hour series A Family at War, which sold throughout the world and is still being transmitted in countries such as India and Pakistan, and throughout the Middle East. Norwegian viewers recently voted it the best television series ever. He later created and personally wrote every episode of the 39-hour series Sam, a tribute to his mining village upbringing, and went on to create and write many other long-running series.

In 1975, he was given the award of Best Series Writer by the Writers Guild of Great Britain, and received the Broadcasting Press Guild Critics Award for Sam in the same year.

His novel, Cuddon Return, was a bestseller, and in 2002 he completed his first play for the theatre, JOE, described as “a play for two actors and a load of junk.” It has been warmly praised by critics, producers, actors and fellow writers.

He has lived with his family for many years in the Yorkshire Dales.

Visit John’s website: johnfinch.com

Hosted by Gray Jones, the TV Writer Podcast is devoted to interviews with working TV writers. It is brought to you by Script magazine and Scriptmag.com, the leading source for scriptwriting information in print and on the web; and by Final Draft scriptwriting software, the entertainment industry standard for scriptwriting worldwide.

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