Richard Carpenter

Richard Michael "Kip" Carpenter (14 August 1929 – 26 February 2012) was an English screenwriter, author and actor. He created a number of British television series, including Robin of Sherwood and Catweazle.

Early life Carpenter was born in King's Lynn, Norfolk, and educated at Downham Market Grammar School (now Downham Market Academy. He attended the Old Vic Theatre School before starting an acting career by working in repertory theatre.

Career Carpenter appeared in occasional films, but was mostly active on British TV in the 1960s as a character actor, on one occasion opposite Tony Hancock in one of his last shows for the BBC, commonly known as "The Bowmans". Other TV shows in which he appeared in the 1960s included Z-Cars, Dixon of Dock Green, Gideon's Way, Sherlock Holmes and The Baron.

In 1969, Carpenter created Catweazle, the children's series about an unfortunate wizard from the 11th century who is accidentally transported to the present day. This changed the course of his career substantially. Carpenter earned international recognition and a Writers' Guild award for creating the cult children's TV series.

During the 1970s, he wrote the series The Ghosts of Motley Hall (1976–1978), Dick Turpin (1979–1982), parts of the series The Famous Five and Doctor Snuggles, and 17 episodes of The Adventures of Black Beauty for ITV; and Cloud Burst, The Boy from Space and The King's Dragon as part of BBC's Look and Read (1967–2004) programme for schools, He presented all episodes of "Cloud Burst".

In the 1980s came the historical adventures Smuggler and its later antipodean-based follow-up Adventurer and between them, the lavish HTV production Robin of Sherwood, which ran for three series.

As Anthony Hayward wrote in this cited obituary:

Carpenter then worked on a number of series for children and families in the 1990s (The Winjin' Pom, Stanley's Dragon and Out of Sight), some of which (The Borrowers, The Return of the Borrowers and The Scarlet Pimpernel) were based on classic novels.

Carpenter wrote novelisations of many of the early series he created: Catweazle, Cloud Burst, The Ghosts of Motley Hall, Smuggler, Robin of Sherwood (two books) and two books of Dick Turpin.

Personal life Carpenter married Annabelle Lee in 1954. They lived in Ayot Bury, Ayot St Peter near Welwyn in Hertfordshire, had two children and remained married until his death.

Death On 26 February 2012, at the age of 82, Carpenter died in Hertfordshire from a pulmonary embolism.

Filmography Tarnished Heroes (1961) – Freddy H.M.S. Defiant (1962) – Lieut. Ponsonby The Password Is Courage (1962) – Robinson Mystery Submarine (1963) – Lt. Haskins Wings of Mystery (1963) – Ted Clash by Night (1964) – Danny Watts The Terrornauts (1967) – Danny