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by Peter Yeldham

This is a memoir written by one of Australia's pre-eminent screenwriters. In it he details his modest beginnings, life in the United Kingdom and later years back in Australia. Peter Yeldham has spent his life writing plays for radio, television and the stage, as well as film screenplays and more than a dozen novels. He has won many awards for his television scripts and novels and is best known for landmark television series such as The Timeless Land , 1915 , Captain James Cook RN and Jessica. This memoir recounts his experiences as an aspiring writer for radio in Australia, his marriage to Marjorie and their life in England, breaking into the world of stage drama and film. It is the story of a successful writing career and the parallel quest for a happy family life.

250 pages, Paperback

Published February 3, 2020

About the author

Peter Yeldham has been a writer since the age of seventeen, when he wrote short stories and radio scripts. He went to England, intending to stay a year and stayed nearly twenty, writing for British television in the nineteen sixties, then feature films and stage plays, including the highly successful “Birds on the Wing” and “Fringe Benefits” which ran for two years in Paris. He has written another five plays for the theatre and collaborated on the musical “Seven Little Australians.”

His Australian work includes numerous mini-series, among them 1915, Captain James Cook, The Alien Years, All the Rivers Run, The Heroes, Heroes ll – The Return, The Far Country, Run from the Morning, The Timeless Land, Ride on Stranger and The Battlers. He adapted Bryce Courtenay’s novel Jessica which won the 2005 Logie award for best mini-series. He is the author of eight previous novels, which include A Bitter Harvest, Without Warning, The Currency Lads, Against The Tide, and The Murrumbidgee Kid.

In 1991 he received an Order of Australia Medal for achievement in film and television, and in 2003 a Centenary Medal for services to Australian writing. Industry honours include six Australian Writing Awards, a British Guild Award , and a nomination for an International Emmy for his television drama, Captain James Cook.

Reviews

[Angela Wales · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a moving and fascinating account of one writer’s life, from his unhappy childhood in Australia to being a celebrated London screenwriter. And then back to Australia. The personal mixes well with the career highs and lows, and the book serves as an informative history of the entertainment industry in Australia and Britain through the forties to the eighties and beyond. And it’s a good read, as those who have read Yeldham’s novels would expect.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderfully laid-back account of an amazing career that encompasses television, film and the novel. It addresses the reader with a friendly intimacy and makes Yeldham's extraordinary achievements seem just part of an ordinary life. Its insights into the world of film, theatre and television in the decades after the war are amusing and revealing of the people working in our entertainment industry. Anyone interested in scriptwriting and the life of a successful writer will enjoy it.