I had many racing scoops during my 23 years as a racing correspondent on the Racing Post and the Daily Mail. The most notable was probably the December 2007 conclusion of the Old Bailey trial involving champion jockey Kieren Fallon who was, together with five other defendants, found innocent of corruption. I had learned during the course of the trial that Fallon had failed a second drugs test in France that summer, his second such offence. While colleagues on other papers had Fallon back riding the following week I revealed that he faced an 18 month ban which would involved losing his lucrative job as retained rider for the powerful Irish Coolmore team. That Saturday morning John McCririck held up the back page of the Daily Mail in disbelief during the Morning Line television programme.

There have been great jockeys down the years but none will eclipse the legendary Lester Piggott who is now 85. He won 30 Classic races in his career including nine Derbies. He was a man of few words and let his riding do the talking. In sharp contrast racing’s positive image now relies on the talkative and charismatic Frankie Dettori who I forgive for being an Arsenal fan. No wonder he is sometimes depressed! Frankie’s greatest day came in 1997 when he rode all seven winners at Ascot one day, almost bankrupting the nation’s bookmakers.

The greatest steeplechaser I ever saw was Arkle who won three Cheltenham Gold Cups from1964-6. I have stood next to his skeleton in the Irish National Horse museum near the Curragh. He was exceptional but so was the almost white Desert Orchid who won only one Gold Cup but was near invincible at Kempton Park winning four King George VI chases on Boxing Day. The present day light of my life is the Champion stayer Trueshan as I own a few hairs of his elegant tail. We are all hoping he can win the Ascot Gold Cup in 2021.

I have maintained cordial relations with bookmakers down the years. Some 15 years ago I wrote that allowing fruit machines into betting shops would be tantamount to permitting High Street casinos. It took the Government a decade and a half to realise I was right and to reduce maximum stakes from £100 to £2. Of course much casino betting is now done on line – and that’s where Government focus should be.

Documentaries that I co-created with my brother Charles Marriott.

Following my retirement from Fleet Street I decided to make three documentaries for television. I partnered up with my brother Charles Marriott and former Sky producer Stuart Strickson. The first was based on the never heard before tapes of my conversations with Biggs from 1974. The second coincided with the 20th anniversary of the publication of Andrew Morton’s book on Princess Diana. Royal correspondents came to praise Morton while Sunday Times Editor Andrew Neil explained why he had serialised the book and Sunday Telegraph Editor Max Hastings why he had not. The latter simply could not believe that Diana would confide in “an oik from Leeds”. Following her death five years later Morton proved that she did. The third programme documented the suffering of thalidomide victims, most of whom were born in the early 1960s. It was very moving to see these people now in the 50s and what a struggle they had with life.

I utilised tapes from my Biggs enterprise to make RONNIE BIGGS THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBER (Channel 5). Ronnie Biggs became Britain s most wanted man after fleeing prison following the most iconic crime in British history: The Great Train Robbery. Nearly 50 years later I used my 1974 audio tapes recorded with reconstruction scenes and new interviews with those who were there at the time. The film will tell the remarkable story of Ronnie Biggs life. We also examine the sequence of chance encounters that led me to land the scoop of the decade and the betrayals that would change the lives of both myself and Biggs forever.

THE BOOK THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING (Sky Arts) is about Andrew Morton’s book on Princess Diana 20 years after publication. The story of how Andrew Morton wrote the biography of Diana, Princess Of Wales, and how he was ridiculed by Fleet Street until her death.

Andrew Morton’s controversial book ‘Diana: Her True Story’ surprised the world when it was first published. Now, in the book’s 20th anniversary year, Sky Arts determines how the publication’s revelations threatened the reputation of the Royal Family and irrevocably altered the relationship between press and monarchy. In this exclusive Book Show special, Mariella Frostrup narrates the definitive story of Morton, his publisher and key players in the events leading up to the book’s publication in 1992. Through interviews, they look back at the influence this extraordinary book had on UK society, the press and within the Royal Family itself, who failed in their numerous attempts to stop the book from being published.

From press suspicion and character assassination to burglary and death threats, ‘Diana: Her True Story’ turned Andrew Morton’s life upside-down. In this candid interview he reveals how the opponents to his book attempted to discredit and destroy his reputation and how he struggled to cope under the pressure of the public reaction to his work. Detailing in revealing insight, Morton explains how the Royal Family were suspicious of him from his time as the Daily Mail Royal correspondent and long before the book went into print. Following an investigation by Scotland Yard as to his insider sources, his office was broken into and his contacts documents and working files were ransacked.The book’s serialisation in June 1992 by a cautious editorial team at The Sunday Times, created public hysteria as Morton was accused of orchestrating an elaborate hoax regarding the books’ revelations about an unhappy Princess Diana: her mental state, eating disorders, the breakdown of her marriage and her attempted suicides. He reveals how fellow journalists were briefed to write against him and leading retailers refused to stock the book. Morton received the protection of armed guards following death threats from an Irish terrorist group.

THALIDOMIDE:THE FIFTY YEAR FIGHT (BBC) is about the drug scandal that affected so many babies in the sixties.

Over fifty years ago the drug Thalidomide shocked the world. For ten years a battle for compensation was fought against one of Britain’s largest corporations. One man stood up against this injustice, but this man would see those he was fighting for, turn against him and many attempted to silence his story. But his actions set in motion a chain of events which changed the lives of every Thalidomide child born in the UK and the legacy of that battle continues today, over fifty years on from the tragedy, campaigners are now focusing on the inventors of the drug.

The Queen, The Queen Mother, Thatcher, Elizabeth Taylor and Quentin Crisp.

The Queen, and The Queen Mother.

I had the great privilege, through my job as racing correspondent for the Daily Mail to rub shoulders with the Queen and the Queen Mother. My wife Linda and I had a ten minute chat with the Queen Mother in the dining room of the Ascot racecourse Trustees. She was 91 and yet very aware of everything. For example she blocked the entreaties of a Channel Four executive who was begging her to use her influence to ditch the BBC contract at Ascot in favour of his employers. No joy. She and discussed how expensive it is to have racehorses in training.

Mrs Thatcher.

I met Mrs Thatcher several times in late 1969 and early 1970 when she was Shadow Education Minister. She was full of energy and mastered her brief very quickly. She was ante comprehensive schools, having herself been educated at a selective Grammar school in Grantham, Lincs. She found me and my fellow education correspondents very left wing in our views. There was one exception – the Daily Mail’s Rod Tyler who formed a friendship which resulted in his writing an acclaimed biography of the Iron Lady.

Elizabeth & Richard.

I was fortunate to meet Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton a couple of times. On the first occasion they were playing Dr Faustus at the New Theatre, Oxford in 1966. My wife and I sat down at a post performance party in the Randolph hotel and Burton came to join us because his best friends from Wales were talking to us. We had a whole evening with him and he promised me an interview at their hotel the following morning. Burton was as good as his word, sat down in the Bear, Woodstock, with a bottle of vodka while I had a coffee and croissants. Two years later I was at the Tower of London when they moored a huge yacht beside Traitors’ Gate. They had chartered the yacht so that Elizabeth could bring her pet dogs with her – otherwise they would have had to be quarantined!

Quentin Crisp.

The Naked Civil Servant, aka Quentin Crisp, was a regular lunchtime visitor at our Battersea home on Sundays in the early 1980s. He would come over from Chelsea with his friend Peter York, the man who created the Sloane Ranger phenomenon. It was like inviting Oscar Wilde to your home. He was excruciatingly funny with put downs which had everyone in stitches of laughter. He would never use your first names – we were always Mr and Mrs Mackenzie. His principal advice was not to bother with a cleaner – “My dears,” he would say. “The dirt gets no worse after three years without one.”

Hazel Adair

Hazel Adair in the black-sleeved dress with the cast of “Crossroads” & “Compact”

My mother was television pioneer Hazel Adair, who created TV hits Crossroads and Compact amongst many others. She wrote the first drama to be aired on the newly launched ITV in 1955 and helped set up The Writers Guild of Great Britain, becoming the first female co-chair alongside Denis Norden later down the line. Hazel played a significant part in black history by creating some of the first regular roles for black actors on TV see Guardian article here.

My mother Hazel Adair was a pioneer of television, having created several soaps, including Sixpenny Corner which was the very first programme ever broadcast by the new commercial channel Associated Rediffusion in September 1955. It was the precursor of Coronation Street and East Enders. She also worked on Emergency Ward Ten as a scriptwriter and created with her writing partner Peter Ling the long running Compact and Crossroads. She truly did break the glass ceiling in television which was very male dominated until the latter part of the 20th century.

The Life of Hazel Adair

From soap operas such as Crossroads and Compact to erotic movies in the 1970s, Hazel Adair was responsible for writing them all…

Read Hazel Adair – Writer who created television history | The Express

Hazel Adair, who has died aged 95, was the co-creator, with Peter Ling, of Crossroads, the ITV soap opera which, while much-mocked for its wobbly sets, was immensely popular; she also scripted numerous dramas for radio, television and films, and had a successful spell in the 1970s as a writer of…

Read Obituary on The Telegraph

Hazel Adair, the first woman Chair of WGGB in 1965-66, created Britain’s first daily TV soap, Sixpenny Corner, and also our first mass-audience soap, Compact. If that wasn’t enough, she went on to create the legendary Crossroads in collaboration with Peter Ling…

Read more on The Writers’ Union

Matthew Bannister on Obituary podcast series, analysing and celebrating the lives of people who have recently died. Hazel Adair, the TV scriptwriter behind hit series like Compact, Emergency Ward 10 and Crossroads…

Listen on BBC Sounds

Hazel Adair was born on July 9, 1920 in Darjeeling, India. She was a writer and producer, known for Can You Keep It Up for a Week? (1974), Virgin Witch (1971) and Crossroads Motel (1964). She was married to Ronald Marriott and Gordon Mackenzie. She died on November 22, 2015 in the UK…

Read Biography on IMDb

HAZEL Adair, who has died aged 95, was a pioneer of British television soap operas. She introduced black and homosexual characters into stories she wrote for such series as Emergency – Ward 10 and Crossroads, which she dreamed up in a single bank holiday weekend with her writing partner Peter Ling…

Read more on The Herald

Born Hazel Willett in Darjeeling, India. Her father, Edward, worked as an engineer in Calcutta during the Raj. He and his wife Ada returned to Britain when their daughter was nine months old, they divorced in 1923 with her mother remarrying later Edward Hamblin…

Read on Crossroads Creators

Pseudonym of India-born actor, television producer, scriptwriter and author Hazel Joyce Marriott (1920-2015), in the UK from infancy, perhaps best known for her co-creation with Peter Ling of the British daily television serial Crossroads (1964-1988); she also wrote as by Clare Nicol and Klaus Vogel…

Listen on SFE

Hazel Joyce Marriott (née Willett; 9 July 1920 – 22 November 2015), known professionally as Hazel Adair, was a British actress turned screenwriter and creator of soap operas for radio and television. She is best known for co-creating Crossroads with Peter Ling…

Read more on Wikipedia

Hazel Adair, who has died aged 95, was a pioneer of soap opera on British television. She was the co-creator of Sixpenny Corner, Britain’s first daily soap; Compact, the first serial to feature a regular black character; and, most famously, Crossroads…

Read Obituary on The Guardian

Adair published a number of novels, dabbled in Britain’s 1970s sex-film industry, and stood up for her fellow writers’ rights as a leading light of the Writers’ Guild…

Read on The Independent

Here she is interviewed by Dr. Mary Irwin during her work on the AHRC-funded ‘A History of Television for Women in Britain, 1947-89’ at the University of Warwick in September 2011. You can also read Anthony Hayward’s obituary of Hazel here. Our condolences go to Hazel’s family so were so kind and supportive in facilitating Mary’s interview with her…

Listen on University of Warwick

Channel 4 Documentary Featuring Hazel Adair, on the Sex Comedies of 1970s