A Play On Words

by Deric Longden

Overview

Ever since Dame Thora Hird breathed life into the role of Deric Longden�s mother in @Wide Eyed and Legless�. She had been on at him to write a play based on the sequel, �Lost For Words�.
�And don�t hang about, I�m eighty � three, you know.�
But life doesn�t run in straight lines for Deric. Apart form his duties as official guide dog to his blind wife, the writer Aileen Armitage, he is at the beck and call of three and a half cats, a somewhat bemused vole and a tap-dancing squirrel. He also had a book to finish, so the screenplay had to take a back seat for the time being.
But Dame Thora didn�t give up. She rang him regularly, �Come on, lad, get a move on. I�m eighty-five, you know.�
By the time she was eighty-six Deric had finished the script. In January 1999�Lost for Words� was finally televised � by which time Dame Thora was eighty-seven going on thirty �two.
In �A Play on Words� he describes the unique experience of seeing at close hand his book � and importantly part of his own life � turn into a film and the continuing chaos of his private world. Somehow or other, despite the usual hilarious interruptions, his own brand of literary work gets done, influenced by such matters as rag and bone men, the Moscow State Circus and crinkle-cut beetroot- and the usual cast of characters.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940149599745
Publisher:	Bibliophile Ltd
Publication date:	12/01/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	755 KB

About the Author

Deric Longden was born in Chesterfield in 1936 and married Diana Hill in 1957. They had two children, Sally and Nick. After various jobs he took over a small factory making women's lingerie, but began writing and broadcasting in the 1970s and before long he was writing regularly for programmes like 'Does He Take Sugar?' and 'Womans Hour'. Most of his work was based on his own experience. The demands made on him by Diana's illness, subsequently believed to be a form of ME, forced him to sell the factory, and since then he has devoted himself to full-time writing, broadcasting, lecturing and after-dinner speaking.

Diana�s Story, published in 1989, some years after Diana's death, was a bestseller. The book hit the Sunday Times best seller list straight away, won the NCR book award. It was followed by Lost for Words, The Cat Who Came in from the Cold, I�m a Stranger Here Myself, Enough to Make a Cat Laugh and A Play On Words. Deric Longden's first two books were adapted for television under the title Wide-Eyed and Legless, and an adaptation of Lost for Words. Both were nominated for multiple BAFTAs and Lost For Words, screened in January 1999, attracting an audience of more than 12 million viewers and won the Emmy for best foreign drama and a BAFTA for Thora Hird as best actress.

He married the writer Aileen Armitage in 1990 and now lives in Huddersfield. Aileen and he were jointly were awarded honorary Doctor of Literature from Huddersfield University in 2004 and Deric a honorary Master of Letters from Derby University in 2006.

After years of battling cancer he died in June 2013