Scattered Remains

About Douglas Watkinson

Douglas Watkinson has written literally hundreds of televisions scripts, everything from Z Cars to Midsomer Murders, which he helped to establish. The latter, under the title  Inspector Barnaby, has been seen by a billion people. All he’s asking is that one percent of them read Haggard Hawk and Easy Prey...

Douglas was born into an army family and educated at Haberdashers’ Aske’s. From there, though indirectly, he went to East 15 Acting School where his first plays were performed. On graduating he bombarded television companies with plays and eventually one was produced by Scottish Television.  It was a thirty minute two-hander called Click.

You can find more about his television work on his website (www.douglaswatkinson.com) including when and where to see repeats of it, at least in the UK.

His novels are a recent addition to his CV, and he first wrote Haggard Hawk under the pen name of Marcus Barr, an old family name. He says, “The problem is, I never really came to terms with being Marcus ... so I went back to using my real name. Indepenpress were kind enough to republish Haggard Hawk to take account of it.”      

His novels feature the hard-bitten, soft-centred ex copper Nathan Hawk who was ‘requested to retire’, as the British so delicately put it. It was the result of his over-active mouth and fiery temper leading  him to strike a fellow officer. That aside, there remain four things which bother him and, in a case of art reflecting life,  they are his grown up children, dispersed all over the world.  

The next Hawk novel is called Scattered Remains and will be available in October. The fourth book, Evil Turn, will be finished by Christmas.

Douglas lives in a thatched house in the Buckinghamshire countryside with his wife and two German Shepherds. He works in a shed in the garden. It’s a little more comfortable than the one he started out with ... but it’s still a shed.