Prior

ALLAN PRIOR (1922 - 2006)

Allan Prior was born in Newcastle, though he spent a good deal of his boyhood in Blackpool. He claimed his place in the pantheon of popular television as one of the founding writers of the BBC-TV police series, Z Cars, a distinction roughly on a par with membership of the 1966 England World Cup team. Developed from a single play by Troy Kennedy Martin, Z Cars was the first cops-and-robbers series to treat policemen as fallible human beings, to get away from the Scotland Yard scene in favour of a raw, sprawling, new-town landscape, and to anticipate the policing by motor car that would soon be general.
Howard's Way, the BBC's calculated 1985 bid to emulate such super-soaps as Dallas and Dynasty, was co-devised by Prior. He wanted it to be a parable of the Thatcher years, but the broadcasting companies were only interested in ratings. An affable, cheery soul, Prior was the father of the folk-rock singer Maddy Prior.

Myers Literary Guide:	The North-East
ALLAN PRIOR (1922 - 2006) Allan Prior was born in Newcastle, though he spent a good deal of his boyhood in Blackpool. He claimed his place in the pantheon of popular television as one of the founding writers of the BBC-TV police series, Z Cars, a distinction roughly on a par with membership of the 1966 England World Cup team. Developed from a single play by Troy Kennedy Martin, Z Cars was the first cops-and-robbers series to treat policemen as fallible human beings, to get away from the Scotland Yard scene in favour of a raw, sprawling, new-town landscape, and to anticipate the policing by motor car that would soon be general. Howard's Way, the BBC's calculated 1985 bid to emulate such super-soaps as Dallas and Dynasty, was co-devised by Prior. He wanted it to be a parable of the Thatcher years, but the broadcasting companies were only interested in ratings. An affable, cheery soul, Prior was the father of the folk-rock singer Maddy Prior.
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