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Ross Napier (April 21, 1929 – November 2, 2004). Ross Napier was one of Australia's leading radio and TV writers from the 1950s to 1990s, as well as an accomplished novelist.[1] Born in Sydney in 1929, he began writing short stories for magazines while still in high school, selling his first script at 17. Shortly after, he became a staff writer for Grace Gibson Radio Productions,[2] and during the 1950s and 1960s his radio serials were broadcast Australia-wide and internationally. This firmly established Napier as one of Australia's leading drama writers. Whilst at Gibson's he met Ann Fuller, who he married in 1953.


Career


Over the course of his career, Napier spent much of his time in television, notably as script editor of the classic Australian series Skippy the Bush Kangaroo,[3] for which he wrote the majority of episodes. Skippy was sold to 128 countries, dubbed into 25 languages and watched by a global audience of over 300 million viewers. Ross was also script editor and regular writer on the ground-breaking Number 96, and head writer/script editor of The Restless Years, another TV ratings winner, as well as Chopper Squad.

In 1982, he came up with a new format for radio called The Castlereagh Line. Originally contracted for 65 episodes, it ran for 910 and was aired by more stations than any Australian serial ever. At a time when radio drama had long been put out to pasture, 2WS saw its potential and the rest was history. The program was so popular that factories downed tools to enable the staff to listen to it. According to an article in The Sydney Morning Herald in 1984 "Devotees are continually ringing the station to find out what will happen in the next three weeks as they have to know, or they can’t go on holiday". The radio serial has been re-broadcast nationally many times over and continues to run to this day.

Ross loved the Castlereagh project. He and wife Ann researched all the locations where the story took place, driving around Tamworth and Glen Innes and visiting all the old coaching stations. During the course of ‘The Line's’ initial broadcast from 1982 to 1986, Ross wrote the first three Castlereagh novels: The Castlereagh Line, The Castlereagh Way and The Colours of Castlereagh. The books were sold in all major and most independent bookstores nationally, including Angus & Robertson, Dymocks and Collins, with 'Line' and 'Way' going into reprint due to popular demand.

Over the next few years came four more Castlereagh novels: The Castlereagh Heritage, The Castlereagh Rose, The Castlereagh Crown and The Castlereagh Cross.

The never-before-published grand finale, The Castlereagh Requiem, was drafted before Ross died in 2004. The manuscript is currently being edited by his daughter, Linzi Napier, who, with Jacqui Law-Smith, formed Castlereagh Productions with plans to re-release the novels and turn the phenomenally successful radio serial into a television series.


Selected writings



Additional Film, TV and Scriptwriting Credits of Ross Napier



References


  1. 'Australian radio series (1930s–1970s): A guide to holdings in the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia', National Film and Sound Archive'
  2. Richard Lane, The Golden Age of Australian Radio Drama 1923–1960, Melbourne University Press, 1994 p275
  3. One of Australia's most prolific scriptwriter's during his career he wrote extensively for Television with Grundy Entertainment including episodes of the ground show Number 96. 'Skippy Episode Guide' Classic Australian Television

5. Linzi Napier and Jacqueline Law-Smith Biographers-Castlereagh Productions & Publishing





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