Peter Cocks

As a child

I grew up in Gravesend, Kent and went to Gravesend Grammar School, where my main interest was acting. I spent a lot of time by the river and on the marshes – where Dickens set Great Expectations. It is a moody location and I used it as a place to set the mood of Long Reach. We also shot the trailer there.

As an adult

I studied History of Art at the University of East Anglia. Charlie Higson was there at the same time, but I didn’t know him. He was in the most famous rock band in Norwich and had a Mohican. I wore a blazer and thought I was in Brideshead Revisited. He was cooler than me. After university I worked in interior design in London for several years and then in New York. In New York, I jumped ship and joined a performance art group called The Living Paintings. I spent the next few years travelling the world, being painted blue and hung on art gallery walls. Back in the UK, the media attention The Living Paintings attracted introduced me to the world of television and I became a peformer and writer on Saturday Morning TV shows, later becoming a full time script writer on BBC children’s dramas, animations and comedies. I wrote Big Kids, CBBC’s most repeated drama (with Mark Billingham) Cramp Twins and lots of Basil Brush. I wrote his speech for the Oxford Union debate on hunting foxes. Until 2005, I was The Doc on ITV’ Saturday show, The Ministry of Mayhem, presenting science in an entertaining manner. Since then, I have done a live science show called The Even Bigger Bang in Brighton every year.

As a writer

I try to set myself targets for working, say, 1000 words a day. Sometimes I do more, sometimes I get stuck and do less. My first published book was called Knight School, an adaptation of a TV series of the same name that I wrote with Mark Billingham. It was about a school for young knights and sadly got a little overshadowed by some book about a school for wizards that was published the same year. With Mark Billingham, I wrote a trilogy of supernatural YA novels called Triskellion for Walker Books. We wrote them under the joint name, Will Peterson. I enjoy writing collaboratively, having someone to bounce ideas off speeds the process enormously, and I am used to writing with someone else from working in TV. When you are writing by yourself, the kettle is always calling. When you get stuck on a chapter, even the washing up beckons… Despite this, I managed to write Long Reach and Body Blow, thrillers featuring Eddie Savage, a seventeen year old who goes undercover in a crime family. I am working on the third … but the kettle’s just boiled.

Things you didn't know about Peter Cocks

1. I was the Penguin in McVities biscuit commercials.
2. I won a Chopper bike in a comic compettiton in 1972.
3. My daughter is an actress called Rusty O’Hara. She was in Wild Child with Emma Roberts.
4. I once met Andy Warhol.
5. I worked with Cheryl Cole and Dannii Minogue.
6. I was an under-14 boxing champion.
7. I was a character called "Dad" in ITV’s Globo Loco. There is a Korean fan site for "Dad”.
8. In my performing work, I have sometimes dressed as a lady.
9. I run a monthly cabaret club called The Private Widdle Social Club.
10. I was held hostage in a hotel in Manchester.