In his memoir, Richard tells how he set up his own film company Banner Film and TV in 1982, to give a voice to working- class people who weren’t usually represented on television, and went on to write, produce, and direct 14 films for Channel 4 Television and BBC 2 Television. Born in a mining village, the son of a miner, the two films closest to his heart are the two he made in the year-long1984/85 Miners’ Strike. At a time when the press and most people in the country were against them, Richard telephoned a commissioning editor at Channel 4, and proposed a film supporting the striking miners and their fight to protect their jobs, the jobs of their children, and to save their communities. He was commissioned during that phone call. He then went on to direct two films for Channel 4, in which miners and their wives eloquently and movingly put the social and economic case for keeping the British coalmines open
By this time, because of the success of his novel, A Kestrel for a Knave, and it being filmed by Ken Loach as Kes, Richard’s brother Barry had become very well known. Wanting to establish himself as a filmmaker in his own right, on the credits of his two mining films, Richard calls himself Richard Anthony – his first names.
Coal Not Dole – Miners United, and Here We Go, can be viewed below.
ITV Calendar Film
In this 3 minute ITV Calendar film, shot at Tankersley Old Hall, Richard describes how on a moonlit night in June 1965, he went to take his kestrel, Kes, from a nest in these medieval ruins.
In 1965, Richard worked as falconer on the Ken Loach film, Kes, training the three kestrels used in the film, and teaching David Bradley, who played Billy Casper, falconry. In the film, David climbs up to the nest at Tankersley Old Hall to take his kestrel.
BBC Clip from Greg Davies: Looking for Kes
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In this BBC television film, Greg Davies: Looking For Kes, Richard flies a kestrel for the first time in 50 years. |