Lady Mellor BAFTA OBE was my affectionate, comic name for Kay Mellor. It used to make her laugh. She wasn’t a “lady” in the baronial sense but surely would have become a Dame one day. She had the BAFTA, though, the Dennis Potter Award in 1997 for Outstanding Writing for Television. She received the OBE in the 2009 birthday honours. There were many other awards and statuettes that graced her home in Leeds, including the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Award for Outstanding Contribution to Writing. Kay was also made a Fellow of the Royal Television Society and in February 2020 she received the Broadcast Special Recognition Award – all prizes she could never have dreamed of receiving.
She was born in Leeds in 1951 into what was already an unhappy marriage between her Jewish mother Dinah and Catholic father George. Her father was a violent man and in 2017 on the BBC radio show Desert Island Discs, Kay spoke movingly about her childhood experience of hearing her mother’s cries as she crouched upstairs. When Kay was four Dinah divorced George, marrying Abe Harris when Kay was 14.
When she was just 16, Kay met Anthony Mellor, became pregnant and the couple married in 1967. Kay promised her mother that she would return to education one day. I remember Kay telling me: “We got married on December 12th and by Christmas Eve I wanted to go home. Fortunately, Anthony was a lot wiser than me and made me see the sense in staying”.
The couple would have celebrated 55 years of marriage this December. They were the centre of each other’s worlds. They lived, loved and grew together, creating a wonderful family with their first daughter Yvonne (now a successful TV producer) and then Gaynor, now an actress. Family was everything to Kay and Anthony. They relished spending time with their grandchildren Grace, Elliot, Oliver and Lily. In later years there was an addition to the family, their adored dog Happy, who went everywhere with them.
Kay kept her promise to her mother and returned to education, gaining O- and A-levels. When she was 27 she enrolled at Bretton Hall College in Wakefield, graduating in 1983 with a BA Hons in Drama. Her life was about to change.
It was her acting that led to her working as a writer: “I had written plays whilst at college,” Kay once told me. “I was acting in the soap Albion Market. I thought I’d have a go at writing a script, so I did, and I sent it in.” Her script was so good she ended up having to write her character out of the show. From there her writing took off with Coronation Street and Brookside, beginning a career that spanned over three decades with hit series like Band of Gold, Playing the Field, Fat Friends and The Syndicate.
Kay wasn’t a “precious writer”, she didn’t keep her skills to herself and was always keen to help and encourage aspiring writers and actors. Some of today’s best-known writers like Sally Wainwright (Happy Valley, Gentleman Jack) and Russell T Davies (Dr Who, It’s A Sin) were mentored by Kay in their early days.
I met Kay in 1990 when I interviewed her for the Jewish Chronicle; a lifelong friendship was born. She was a true and good friend, always there when needed. My abiding memory of walking into shul at my wedding in 2014 was of Kay in a huge turquoise hat, crying in sheer joy because, as she said, “It’s finally happened”. She always included my mother Sadie in any event or party she was holding. Sadie and her mother Dinah were friends from the various friendship groups at the synagogues in Leeds. When my mother died in 2016, Kay and Anthony spent an entire afternoon with us, talking over memories.
Kay Mellor, left, with Francine White at the opening of Fat Friends the Musical in 2017
Kay remained loyal to her native city, Leeds, where she lived and based her production company, Rollem. It was also the place where she filmed all her TV series. Not that Hollywood didn’t beckon. One day, sitting at her dining table, surrounded by post-it notes – her way of working on plot and characters – she received a call from Steven Spielberg; “He said he and his wife had watched The Syndicate twice and had loved it. He’s a very modest man and said to me: ‘We can learn so much from you.’ I said, ‘I rather hoped I would learn from you!’” Kay told me. She did make a series with him, Lucky 7, but preferred Leeds to LA.
As the years went on, Kay became a wealthy woman, but money was not the driving force for her; “I’d rather give someone who needed it £2000 than spend it on a handbag,” she once told me. Many of the charities she supported were for the homeless or underprivileged. She always attended a Jewish charity event if she could. Sometimes we would go as a ‘double act’ with me interviewing her on stage, as we once did for Leeds Jewish Women’s Aid annual lunch.
She and Anthony travelled the world together, delighting in exploring far-off countries. Mostly though, she just loved being at home, surrounded by family and friends. A home that as young poor teenagers, she and Anthony would walk past and dream of owning. When two decades later the house came up for sale the couple were able to buy it.
Before she died last month, aged 71, Kay was planning a tour of her musical Fat Friends, with several other TV projects in the pipeline. She will be remembered for her amazing body of work. That and her family are her legacy. For me she will always be a dear friend.
She is survived by her husband Anthony, their daughters Yvonne and Gaynor, grandchildren Grace, Elliot, Oliver and Lily, and brother Philip.
Kate Mellor, OBE: born May 11, 1951.
Died May 15, 2022
