Uncle John

My Great Uncle John (or simply Uncle John as we called him) was the other playwright in our family. As far as I know, Uncle John never had anything professionally produced but he was a teacher in Manchester for years and wrote the school plays.

Uncle John once wrote a song for a school production called 'Take Me Back To Manchester Where It's Always Raining'. Decades later one of his pupils, Mike Leigh, used it in his film 'Naked'. Apparently Mike Leigh had tried and failed to find the writer of the song and had assumed it was a traditional Manchester song. There followed a series of phone calls which ended with Uncle John and Mike Leigh singing down the phone to each other.

I only found all this out much later. Uncle John was an incredibly modest man and one of the most gentlemanly. He told the story with a glint in his eye, more from enjoyment than pride.

Uncle John was always a great supporter of my writing. Back when I was starting out, he and his wife Maria would turn up unannounced to see whatever fringe production I had on. He never asked for a freebie and sometimes made up 100% of the audience. Afterwards, Uncle John would hang around and chat to the actors or the director and later, would write me a beautiful hand-written note of encouragement.

I can't tell you what these letters meant to me.

When you are starting out as a playwright it is difficult to get your friends and family to take you seriously, let alone anyone else. Uncle John was always encouraging and often extremely kind at my false steps and pretentiousness.

In the last few years, Uncle John had had a period of ill health and so had not seen anything recently. But he would occasionally catch one or two of my radio plays and I would duly receive another lovely letter.

In September last year, I was appointed to a post at the University of St Andrews, the town he was born in, had retired to and loved. My dad tells me that Uncle John was incredibly chuffed (his great Uncle had been a part of the University too) but although I had seen him a couple of times in the last few years since moving to Scotland, I had not seen him recently.

Sadly Uncle John passed away yesterday at the age of 89 so I will never get the opportunity to say how much I appreciated his support. He was a real character, a fantastic teller of stories and someone who I felt was on my team.

Thank you, John, for all your support and kindness. You will be missed.