Small Screen

William Ivory : Back to work!

A Picture of Nottinghamshire

William Ivory is passionate about the East Midlands, and his writing is heavily influenced by living and working in the area where he was born and bred.

Ivory locates most of his plays in his native Nottinghamshire, ranging from stories about bin men and bomber pilots to gritty dramas about coal or cabaret.

We look at the people and places which have inspired his work, and have given him the reputation as a deeply authentic writer who gets inside the communities and locations he writes about. 

Dustbin drama

William Ivory's early career had a bit of a rubbish start - life as a dustman wasn't quite the job he dreamed of when growing up as a teenager in Southwell.

William wanted to be a writer but after surviving just three weeks studying English at London University, he found himself back home looking for a job.

He became a dustbin man for Sherwood Council, working first at Crew Lane and then at the Queen's Road depot in Newark. 

"I suppose being a dustman wasn't top of my dad's jobs list for me," says William.

"But at the time this job seemed ideal.  It gave me some money in my pocket, loads of fresh air and exercise - and that's all I was after.

'Common As Muck'

"I loved every minute.  There was something elemental about the job …  One of the earliest memories I have of being on the bins was just the relentlessness of it and how exhausting it was - there were just thousands of bins needing emptying."

The job had another major selling point - it provided William with great inspiration for his writing.

"I'd always planned to write something about it … particularly as there were such colourful characters." 

William worked as a dustbin man for nearly three years,  and during this time he was constantly writing.

"These were great times and… I suppose, this influenced my later work."

Several years later the TV series, 'Common as Muck', starring Edward Woodward, Tim Healy and Roy Hudd, was inspired by William's experiences on the bin rounds.

"Every single thing I wrote happened," he says.

"For me it was about the nature of dirt.  I worked with a bunch of lads who were clean as clean could be.  That was my story - about a group of men who were spiritually very pure."

Big break

William's days on the dustbins were finally put to an end when he broke his arm in an accident.

Once his broken arm had mended, he was looking for something a little less arduous and applied for a job at Nottingham Playhouse.

So William swapped the bins for a job as a stage hand, and this in turn led to him treading the boards in a variety of productions.

Then he received his first big TV break, landing a role in Britain's favourite soap, 'Coronation Street', as brickie Eddie Ramsden.

After being on Britain's most famous street, William got a number of telly jobs including 'Emmerdale', 'All Creatures Great and Small', and the role of a news reporter in Central TV's 'Boon' set in Nottingham.

It looked like William might leave his East Midlands roots behind, but his heart remained firmly rooted in his native Nottinghamshire.

William Ivory. Back to school!

It wasn't long before he was back in the area seeking fresh inspiration for his work.

"It's strange when you look back on things - I suppose I could have been another Corrie veteran," says William.

"During my time in Manchester I was itching to get back home.  I miss the place whenever I'm away.  I always found inspiration for my writing back in the East Midlands."

Sowing the seeds

William’s early life in Southwell remained a big influence, sowing the seeds of his interest in writing.

William attended the town's Minster School, of which he has fond memories, and it was here that he took tentative steps to writing his first play.

"It was a very glorious time really and it fuelled so much of everything else I write about now."

At this time William's mother was seriously ill with Motor Neurone Disease, and this provided the spur for the teenager to escape into a world of imagination, as he explains.

"I think in some ways her illness and her bravery shoved me and writing together even more vigorously.  If not an escape, then this was an easily controlled universe whenever I put pen to paper."

William Ivory : On set

William also dreamed of being a professional writer, perhaps a sports journalist writing about his beloved Notts County.

"In fact it was dramatic Saturday afternoons at Meadow Lane with my best mate Phil that made me think of sports journalism as a career," he says.

But it was writing plays that were his main passion.

As a young boy of eleven-years-old, William went to a talk by Alan Sillitoe, the Nottingham writer of 'Saturday Night and Sunday Morning'.

William told the famous author that he wanted to be a writer, and Sillitoe signed the youngster's book as follows - "To Billy, who with hard work and determination and a lot of it, will become a writer".

William did not disappoint and, like Sillitoe, much of his work has been influenced by the area where he was born and bred.

Faith in the future

Ivory's recent TV drama, 'Faith' draws heavily on the social history of the region he loves so much.

'Faith' is set during the 1984 miners' strike and is one of the first films to tackle the historic confrontation head-on.

"Coming from Nottinghamshire it was hard not to get embroiled in the miners' strike which divided our county," says William.

'A Thing Called Love'

"What had really amazed me since the strike was the fact that no drama had really tackled the nuts and bolts of the strike head on.

"They're always been a conduit… ballet dancing, brass bands… and I wanted to get to the day to day reality of the strike."

"I wanted to show how this was a time that separated and alienated families and friends."

"Standing here in my home town of Southwell the violence and animosity that happened in Nottinghamshire during the strike may seem a world away," says William.

"But I still remember this time and how it divided the community."

William was inspired to write by getting out into the community and meeting the people who'd been involved in the strike.

"I went round Cotgrave, pit villages around where I used to live, Calverton, miners' welfares, and just got out and asked people if they were prepared to talk to me, and a lot of them were."

Many former miners had kept diaries and William wanted to tap into their memories and passion as well as showing how Margaret Thatcher's government had dismantled the pits.

"When you stand here in a ruined colliery, you can see the effects of that … they wrecked the pits and whole communities, and I wanted to mark that moment in history."

Personal stories

As well as places William has also been moved to write about Nottingham people including his family's own experiences.

His first play for television, 'Journey to Knock' starring John Hurt and David Thewlis, was inspired by his mother's experiences of Motor Neurone Disease.

Another TV play 'Night Flight', starring Christopher Plummer and Edward Woodward, was based on his father's experience of being a Lancaster bomber pilot at an RAF base in Lincolnshire.

"There was a point in my life when I was trying to understand my father … he was a very fiery man and I was interested in what made him."

Once again William based the play in the East Midlands, looking at how local men had 'lived for the moment' during their wartime call-up and the effect that had on them when the war ended.

Local hero

These days William Ivory is something of a local hero around these parts - he's certainly a great ambassador for the area.

Sadly he still feels that some TV executives have a problem with setting drama in the East Midlands - he thinks it's a "forgotten area".

"It took me nine years to get a show filmed against the backdrop of Nottingham, and only then because I found a producer with the same passion for the place as me," he says with more than a touch of frustration.

If anyone can change attitudes it is Ivory, who has already successfully written several major TV series including 'A Thing Called Love' which is set in Nottingham.

William wanted to show the city as one of the characters - he saw the Nottingham as a magical, vibrant, dangerous, throbbing place with authentic Nottingham characters and locations.

"I was really determined it should be filmed in Nottingham as it was such an integral part of the whole show - the city was one of the characters.

"People don't know Nottingham really.  I thought if I could bring an audience to this place and they come to know it and recognise it, they'll relax in it and listen to what we're trying to say and they'll come on board with us."

Passion plays

It's his passion for the area that continues to fuel Ivory's best work and he keeps on returning after he's been working away from home.

"I've got a fairly catholic imagination and I can find inspiration in lots of different places," says William.

But whenever William gets writer's block, he thinks back to the days when life was so much simpler - as a bin man in Newark.

He still lives on Nottingham’s doorstep and visits the city's cafés and clubs, eavesdropping on potential characters for his plays.

"Writing's my bread and butter, and luckily I find inspiration comes fairly easily and from all sorts of unlikely places."

To prove a point his latest play could be about a female impersonator, inspired by trips to a local cabaret club.

William is passionate about the local area, "Nottinghamshire, I just love it.  This is a land of contrasts where you can go from gritty coalfields to rolling countryside in a matter of minutes.

"When you've got everything, why look anywhere else?"

"I'm proud of what I've done and the fact that I have brought Nottinghamshire to the masses."

It's proof that you can take the boy out of Nottingham but you can't take Nottingham out of the writer.

'A Picture of Nottinghamshire' runs alongside a new series called 'A Picture of Britain' which is broadcast on BBC One from June 2005.