Patricia Hooker (17 February 1933 – 2001) was an Australian writer who worked extensively in England. She wrote for TV, radio and the stage. [1]
She wrote The Golden Road, the first play on British television that was both written by a woman and about a lesbian relationship. [2] [3]
She grew up in the town of Port Lincoln in South Australia and trained as a stenographer. [4] [5] She began writing in her spare time and her work began appearing in amateur theatres. She worked as a secretary at the Stevedoring Commission in Sydney and also as a court reporter. [6]
Hooker was working as a shorthand typist in a city office in 1959 when she wrote the story for The Little Woman at home in the evenings. She wrote it as a stage play and it was included in a night of one-act plays at the Genesian Theatre. To help it reach a wider audience, Patricia studied a book on TV technique and decided to revise the script as a TV play. The ABC produced it in 1961 by which time she was at the ABC as a script assistant. [7] [8]
She moved to London in 1964 and worked as a court reporter as well as writing for TV and radio.