Peter Ling and Hazel Adair

Peter Ling co-created Crossroads along with Hazel Adair back in 1964. Ling started out as an office boy before being employed in the advertising industry.

ATV

As a Bevin boy during World War II, he started to write and ran a theatre in the barracks in the army pay corps. Just before he was demobbed he contracted TB and had to be hospitalised.

He then, while in hospital, began writing for radio and encouragement was given to him by actor Jon Pertwee. In the early '50s Ling wrote comedy for Whirlygig, a BBC children's show.

The newly formed Associated-Rediffusion television company gave him the job as a script-editor and then became Head of Children's Series on shows such as Small Time. He wrote for the Eagle comic.

Ling also wrote for Associated-Rediffusion shows such as Murder Bag, Crime Sheet and Jango, and in 1961 created a new soap for the BBC called Compact, with Hazel Adair. He was later contracted to The Avengers where he wrote a couple of stories with his wife Sheila Ward.

In 1964 Ling and Adair created a new ATV soap opera set in Birmingham - Crossroads was born! Ling also created Champion House in 1967 and wrote for Associated-Rediffusion on the Sexton Blake detective series and also The Mind Robber, which was a story for the BBC's pioneering science-fiction series, Doctor Who in 1968. There were many other programmes including Green Shoes with George Cole and Happy Holidays, starring Hattie Jacques and John Le Mesurier.

In 1987, new incoming Crossroads producer William Smethurst decided to bring in his own team of writers and Peter Ling was no longer required.

Adair started her television writing career in 1951 on the science-fiction series Stranger From Space which ran until 1953.

She then wrote and devised her own drama series in 1955, Sixpenny Corner. This was ITV's first daily drama running for 10 minutes every morning, the show later moved to evenings when ITV Daytime ceased transmitting due to poor ratings. Sixpenny Corner ran until the summer of 1956.

Hazel shortly after created her first serial, Emergency Ward Ten in 1957; It was the first UK hospital drama-serial, and the first kind of long running drama by ATV. EW10 ran for ten years and later became known as General Hospital in the 1970s after a short spell of being called Calling Oxbridge 2000 (2000 being the phone number)

Along with Tessa Diamond she co-wrote the film version of the ATV medical drama, the 1959 film was aptly titled; Life On Emergency Ward Ten!

She then left television for a short while to start working on another movie in 1961; Dentist On The Job was a comedy which she co-wrote with Bob Monkhouse. Then she joined forces with Peter Ling in 1961 for the BBC soap Compact which ran until 1965 - Crossroads killed it off!

She devised Champion House, again with Peter Ling in 1967, this one-off series ran for 30 episodes.

The 1970s saw British comedy films fall into decline, however it didn't stop Hazel trying to revive it with the bawdy, Keep It Up Downstairs. The film was met with a far from warm reception. Hazel stayed on and off with the Crossroads team until the mid 1970s. Ling and Adair have however continued to work together from time to time on various projects throughout the 1980s and 1990s.