INTERVIEW WITH JULIA JONES

In August 2003 Simon Farquhar interviewed Julia Jones for this site, and asked for her recollections about the production...

Julia Jones' career as a television writer has displayed a great ability for heart warming storytelling, resilient spirit and occasional a tinge of spookiness. She also has a penchant for beautiful adaptations. As a writer her successes have included Still Waters and Moody And Pegg, and her adaptations of such classics as Swish Of The Curtain, The Enchanted Castle and Tom's Midnight Garden have bewitched and delighted whole generations of children.

"That production is very strong in my memory. I remember Thames Television sending me Antonia Fraser's book of Quiet As A Nun to see what I thought of it. I read it and I didn't think it was a marvellous book but I did think "my God, this would make wonderful television!" I telephoned them and said I that I would love to do it, and was then commissioned. Later I remember Antonia Bird, who is such a charming woman, speaking on the radio and saying that she thought the tv version was actually better than the book. I remember the producer asking me later what had made me want to do it, and I explained that when I read it I thought it conjured up all these marvellous pictures, the secret passages and the bleeding heart and the black nun. I thought the production was excellent. It nearly won a big prize in Los Angeles but it didn't in the end because it was about naughty nuns and some people didn't approve of that! It's so lovely to know that people remember it and like it. One sometimes thinks one's work has been all but forgotten, especially with that, as Thames so rarely repeated things. It's so nice to know that isn't the case."

Thanks to Simon, and to Julia for her fascinating comments. I'm sure she'll be pleased to know that her Armchair Thriller contribution is by far the best remembered of all!