writing
Paddy’s English master, Adrian Jackson, told him he could "write and should try journalism", so on leaving school Paddy worked for some months in the building industry as a scaffolder whilst applying to newspapers. Although it didn't provide him with essential career experience an affection for checked shirts prevails to this day.
Finding no success with newspapers he tried film production companies and was taken on as a, in fact the, staff writer at Pearl & Dean Productions, a company then just enjoying a renaissance under new Executive Producer Geoffrey Forster. With great good fortune, a 60-second commercial for the Triumph Herald, written by him within weeks of his arrival and directed by James Hill of Born Free fame, went on to win major prizes at the next annual International Advertising Film Festival in Venice. This helped to raise the profile of the company and brought in an increased volume of prestigious national and international cinema and TV commercials.
While at P&D Paddy managed emerging pop group The Mourners, which would shortly become famous as Mud. During this period he co-wrote some songs for the group with lead guitarist Rob Davis, today an internationally acclaimed songwriter and Novello Award winner, although the songs they wrote at that time won no such accolades!
After three successful years and more prizes, the team at P&D Productions separated into new independent companies and Paddy moved to advertising agency Charles Hobson and Grey as a copywriter, a change he did not enjoy. Within a month he had determined to turn free-lance as a writer, producing scripts for a variety of UK commercial and documentary production houses. This he continued to do to a diminishing extent as his time became increasingly filled by production assignments. Nevertheless during this transition period he enjoyed a long co-operation with Editor Brian Llewelyn and Producer/Director Barrie Hinchliffe at United Motion Pictures, scripting numerous sports documentaries, many of a motorsport nature, including the prize-winning Rally To Win and From Harrogate it Started, the latter being an unusually atmospheric take on a car competition, the 1971 RAC Rally of Great Britain, distinguished by the lack of a commentary in the conventional sense and featuring the music of pop group The Who, who had a car entered in the event.
In the early 70s Paddy took time out to co-write, with Sandra and Karen Schenkein, The Last Spin, a full-length feature screenplay about gambling and casino corruption.
Following that, writing once again took a back seat until 1988 when he created Gricing in a Black Fur Hat, an idiosyncratic account of journeys he made in Russia at the time of Glasnost. In 1995, having worked on the initial series of Hamish Macbeth for BBC Scotland and Zenith, he wrote an episode for series three. Thanks, he maintains, to his profound shortcomings as a salesman, none of these projects went forward. In a one-off return to song writing, he produced all the original lyrics, with music by Matthew and Jay Grayspyrdt, for one year's production of a popular local annual pantomime that enjoys semi-cult status in the Stroud area of Gloucestershire.
Having studied the history of the British police for many years, in 1996 he began to write regularly for specialist publications on the subject. In 2004 he was asked to contribute a chapter on transport to Giving the Past a Future, an Open University book on the preservation of police historic artefacts. One long-running series of his articles, telling the story of British policing through forces' iconography and public image – their uniforms, badges, buildings, vehicles and public relations policies – has been playing in two magazines since 2006 and may, when concluded, be adapted for a book offering a radically different take from the traditional approach to the subject.
For his work on Lockerbie and UNSAFE – The Script of One-Zero-Three, his debut novel, see here.
Following the release of the novel, he was approached to write the story of British police vehicles. The subject had too many facets to be told satisfyingly within the format so the scope was narrowed, leaving other geographical areas and vehicle types for coverage in further companion volumes. Police Stop! as the work came to be called, dealt with patrol and response Vehicles in England and Wales.
Finding no success with newspapers he tried film production companies and was taken on as a, in fact the, staff writer at Pearl & Dean Productions, a company then just enjoying a renaissance under new Executive Producer Geoffrey Forster. With great good fortune, a 60-second commercial for the Triumph Herald, written by him within weeks of his arrival and directed by James Hill of Born Free fame, went on to win major prizes at the next annual International Advertising Film Festival in Venice. This helped to raise the profile of the company and brought in an increased volume of prestigious national and international cinema and TV commercials.
While at P&D Paddy managed emerging pop group The Mourners, which would shortly become famous as Mud. During this period he co-wrote some songs for the group with lead guitarist Rob Davis, today an internationally acclaimed songwriter and Novello Award winner, although the songs they wrote at that time won no such accolades!
After three successful years and more prizes, the team at P&D Productions separated into new independent companies and Paddy moved to advertising agency Charles Hobson and Grey as a copywriter, a change he did not enjoy. Within a month he had determined to turn free-lance as a writer, producing scripts for a variety of UK commercial and documentary production houses. This he continued to do to a diminishing extent as his time became increasingly filled by production assignments. Nevertheless during this transition period he enjoyed a long co-operation with Editor Brian Llewelyn and Producer/Director Barrie Hinchliffe at United Motion Pictures, scripting numerous sports documentaries, many of a motorsport nature, including the prize-winning Rally To Win and From Harrogate it Started, the latter being an unusually atmospheric take on a car competition, the 1971 RAC Rally of Great Britain, distinguished by the lack of a commentary in the conventional sense and featuring the music of pop group The Who, who had a car entered in the event.
In the early 70s Paddy took time out to co-write, with Sandra and Karen Schenkein, The Last Spin, a full-length feature screenplay about gambling and casino corruption.
Following that, writing once again took a back seat until 1988 when he created Gricing in a Black Fur Hat, an idiosyncratic account of journeys he made in Russia at the time of Glasnost. In 1995, having worked on the initial series of Hamish Macbeth for BBC Scotland and Zenith, he wrote an episode for series three. Thanks, he maintains, to his profound shortcomings as a salesman, none of these projects went forward. In a one-off return to song writing, he produced all the original lyrics, with music by Matthew and Jay Grayspyrdt, for one year's production of a popular local annual pantomime that enjoys semi-cult status in the Stroud area of Gloucestershire.
Having studied the history of the British police for many years, in 1996 he began to write regularly for specialist publications on the subject. In 2004 he was asked to contribute a chapter on transport to Giving the Past a Future, an Open University book on the preservation of police historic artefacts. One long-running series of his articles, telling the story of British policing through forces' iconography and public image – their uniforms, badges, buildings, vehicles and public relations policies – has been playing in two magazines since 2006 and may, when concluded, be adapted for a book offering a radically different take from the traditional approach to the subject.
For his work on Lockerbie and UNSAFE – The Script of One-Zero-Three, his debut novel, see here.
Following the release of the novel, he was approached to write the story of British police vehicles. The subject had too many facets to be told satisfyingly within the format so the scope was narrowed, leaving other geographical areas and vehicle types for coverage in further companion volumes. Police Stop! as the work came to be called, dealt with patrol and response Vehicles in England and Wales.