Men with forward facing haircuts....

This is a day or two late but I was really sad to hear,  on Friday 25/6/10, of the death of Alan Plater.

He has written many, many programmes for television as well as plays, screenplays and books.  I remember watching his Trinity Tales in the '70's and the wonderful Beiderbecke Affair in the 1980's, plus the two follow up series, The Beiderbecke Tapes and the Beiderbecke Connection.  

It was in this Trilogy that he referred to "young men with forward facing haircuts" - a description that may be difficult to explain but which gives a very clear picture of the type of person being described!  I still use that phrase (in my head) when dealing with cold calling sales types.

 Barbara Flynn and James Bolam in The Beiderbecke Affair

Alan Plater also adapted Fortunes of War for BBC and wrote the screenplay for A Very British Coup.  A recent very fine episode of Lewis was written by him.   If Alan Plater's name was in the credits then I would watch whatever it was because the quality of writing was guaranteed. 

I hope that some of his programmes will be repeated now to give those who missed some of the early ones a chance to enjoy them.  Personally,  I'm going to watch the Beiderbecke Affair again, enjoy the partnership of James Bolam and Barbara Flynn for the umpteenth time and remember a very, very fine writer.