by Stephen Vagg
It feels a little… forward, I guess, of me to write a personal reminisce about Peter Yeldham, because although I’d known him for over two decades, I never actually met him in person. And while we corresponded, I certainly can’t claim any 84 Charing Cross Road type insight into his personality – certainly not to compare with that you could get from, say, his lovely children Lyn and Perry, or his other family, or friends, of whom there were many.
But I thought it was worth putting down something anyway, because our association meant something to me, and Australian screenwriters get so little acknowledgement and any publicity is good publicity, as I’m sure Peter himself would have appreciated, having worked in the game for many decades.
Of course, he wasn’t just a screenwriter but also a novelist, playwright, radio writer, TV writer, essayist, script editor and most likely a bunch of other things I’m unaware of – he didn’t limit himself to one form, few professional writers can (or want to). Peter’s versatility was a key factor in why he had such a long career, from the 1940s, when he started writing radio scripts in his teens, until a few years ago. Other factors included his professionalism, good nature, determination, tenacity, and supportive spouse – and, of course, talent, although the longer I work in the industry myself the clearer it is that when it comes to longevity, the other factors are more important than the latter.
I first contacted Peter in the very late 1990s, writing a piece for this very magazine, during its print days. I was doing an article on leading Australian screenwriters and wanted to include a section on Peter: although he was probably better known for his mini-series scripts than his cinematic ones, he still had a few handy big-screen credits, including The Comedy Man (1963) with Kenneth More, Our Man in Marrakesh (1966) for Harry Alan Towers, The Long Duel (1967) with Yul Brynner and Age of Consent (1969) for Michael Powell.
Peter wrote back to my email query promptly, friendly and succinctly – I think he was chuffed someone was actually interested in Australian screenwriters – and thus began two decades of on and off correspondence. Admittedly more “off” than “on” but it was always a pleasure to renew our acquaintance: he assisted in another piece on Australian screenwriters for Storyline, the now-defunct AWG magazine; he provided some terrific behind-the-scenes information about his work on the Rod Taylor movie The Liquidator (1965), for my book on Rod (including stories of Rod and his entourage, and the boozy adventures of Trevor Howard); he always responded when I was trying to get some support for a content regulation push; we swapped information about the director Don Sharp and the author Jon Cleary. We had a very round-about personal connection in that John Terry, the first husband of my grandmother, Kath Poole, taught Peter at school; my Nanna Kath (who also passed away this year) was a fan of Peter’s novels and it was cool to tell her I knew him and could pass on her words of praise. In the late 2000s, Peter was a mentor for a screenplay I wrote on the Australian-Indian test series of 1977-78 through the then-PFTC – he didn’t need the money but agreed to take the job because he was a cricket fan. And in the past few years we communicated over his excellent television play Reunion Day.
I’ve written about that work a few times for this website, but for those unaware, this was a script of Peter’s about middle-aged Australian World War Two veterans who meet up on Anzac Day, get on the booze and reveal their dissatisfied lives.
Reunion Day had been commissioned for the BBC, who filmed it to much acclaim in 1962; this production was bought for broadcast by TCN-9 in Sydney only for it to be banned by the Chief Censor, who claimed it was disrespectful to soldiers. I came across a full copy of the (terrific) script via an excellent piece on it from Susan Lever; thanks to the good graces of director Denny Lawrence and a wonderful cast of actors, I arranged for a reading of the play at AFTRS earlier this year, the first time the script had been performed in this country. Peter was unable to make it, but we sent him recording of the performance which gave him great joy, and I will forever be grateful for everyone associated with that day for making it happen.
I recently discovered that in the early 1960s, the ABC had the chance to film Peter’s script for Reunion Day but turned it down because it was “too similar” to One Day of the Year: which wasn’t true at all, incidentally, but the ABC had dodgy taste in those days. Around this time, the ABC also rejected several other Peter scripts that had been filmed for British TV set in Australia, including Thunder on the Snowy and East of Christmas – it was easier to get our stories on British television than Australian in the early 1960s. To be fair, when Peter returned home in the 1970s, he became one of the ABC’s top TV writers, with credits like The Timeless Land and 1915.
He wrote for the commercials, too (the two Heroes mini-series are splendid), as well as various film producers (our industry should have used him more in this field, but he was generally treated terribly in that area compared to television), plus plays, with his emphasis switching increasingly to novels in later years.
There’s a great quote about slow burn careers from the musician Phil Oakey who once said “If you want to make a lot of money out of pop, be number 3 a lot. Like New Order did.” I always felt Peter Yeldham had a similar-ish career in the world of writing – he was always kind of outshone throughout his career, whether in radio, films, TV, theatre or novels… but he was always working too, always in the charts. His highly readable memoir Beginning with an Empty Page is an excellent account of his triumphs, disasters, heart aches and struggles, notably the suicide of his brother David.
Peter Yeldham lived a long age, had a happy family life, earned a lot of money doing a job he loved and served his country, as a soldier and a teller of its stories. You can’t ask for more than that. Still, I will miss him.
