Ex Coronation Street writer's new book is based on Featherstone

Acclaimed television scriptwriter John Finch, whose credits include Family at War and Coronation Street, has published A Shaft of Light in paperback and ebook.

Mr Finch, who was born in 1925, said: “I based A Shaft of Light on the mining town of Featherstone, where I was brought up. After the miners’ strikes Featherstone suffered more than most mining communities from the decline in the coal industry.”

He added: “I hope the book will help to provide a permanent record of a way of life, and the contribution coal made to the industrial success of the country over many years.”

Mr Finch has created and written many of television’s most popular dramas, including the classic Granada TV series Sam, which starred Taggart’s Mark McManus, and began with Sam as a boy growing up among the coal fields of Featherstone.

Other TV hits included A Family at War and Flesh and Blood.

His programmes had audiences exceeding 25 million and frequently beat Coronation Street and Morecambe and Wise in the ratings.

John Finch was the first trainee writer on Coronation Street in 1960.

He started with episode 24 and graduated to being the show’s editor and producer.

His career has seen him honoured as The Best British Series Writer by The Writers Guild of Great Britain. He also won The Broadcasting Press Guild award for Sam.

His new book A Shaft of Light was originally published in hardback, to critical acclaim, as Cuddon Return. This new reissue is the first time it has been made available as an ebook and in paperback, exclusively from Amazon via www.amazon.co.uk/A-Shaft-Light-John-Finch-ebook/dp/B0184HLOP0/.