Freda Kelsall

Freda Margaret Kelsall (born April 1938 in Southport, Lancashire, England)^[1][2] is a British writer, theatre director and former teacher who is best known as the main writer (1975–1996; occasionally also a presenter in the last few of those years) of the schools television series How We Used To Live.^[3]

In the 1960s, she was a schoolteacher in London and had a novel published.^[4] In this period she appeared in epilogues for Rediffusion, the then ITV franchise holder; in October 1967, when she was "just starting a teaching career", she contributed to a series of epilogues on religious education^[2][5] and also discussed a number of books in similar epilogues under the title 'Outlook and Insight',^[2] for example William Mayne's Earthfasts,^[6] Ivan Southall's To the Wild Sky^[7] and Mollie Hunter's The Kelpie's Pearls.^[8]

In 1970, she moved to Alresford, Hampshire, where she initially continued her teaching career, also inspiring Colin Firth to begin his acting career.^[4] In 1980, heavily committed to work for Yorkshire Television,^[4] she briefly moved to Leeds and then in 1982, to Heptonstall, just outside Hebden Bridge^[2] where she founded the Bridge Theatre Company in 1987, and ran it for many years.^[2][9] She continued to direct plays for this company until at least 2006.^[10] On 31 March 1981, her play The Reason of Things, produced by YTV, was networked by ITV.^[11] She had two further plays networked in 1984, Sweet Echo on 22 January, produced by Yorkshire,^[12] and Grand Duo on 29 July, produced by LWT.^[13] Her play The Index Has Gone Fishing, made by Central Television and filmed in Pershore, Worcestershire,^[4] was networked by ITV on 28 June 1987.^[14] In 1987 she wrote an episode of the BBC drama series One by One.^[15] She also wrote six episodes of Emmerdale Farm in the spring of 1981, and six further episodes that autumn.^[16] Her most recent television work credited by the British Film Institute consists of three episodes of Heartbeat in the mid-1990s.^[17]

She is also the author of a number of books based around How We Used to Live, and of a number of stage plays which have appeared in print.^[18] In 2010, she presented a retrospective of the How We Used to Live series at Hebden Bridge's 500th anniversary festival.^[19] In December 2017, she spoke to a local history society on the history of her home.^[20]