AustLit

Script-writer.

Born in Christchurch, New Zealand, Ray Harding completed a degree in English literature at the University of Canterbury (New Zealand), before travelling to the United Kingdom, where he joined the British army. He studied acting in London, lived in Israel, and taught the English language and American history at the University of South Vietnam until 1975, when Saigon fell to North Vietnam forces.

Settling to Australia, Harding wrote his first film script, which became the 1985 film I Can't Get Started (directed by Rodney Fisher), about a writer whose wife thinks his lack of output is down to laziness, while he believes he suffers from writers' block. The film was not produced until some years after it was written: Harding and his Australian wife first spent some six months in the UK, before returning to Australia, where Harding taught English to Vietnamese refugees, before starting a job with Crawford Productions in 1979, writing for programs such as Holiday Island.

Harding's next film script was the 1988 telemovie Sisterly Love (co-written with Jeremy Higgins and directed by Mark DeFriest), about two sisters who have reconcile after living apart for twenty years.

In the same period, he began writing extensively for television dramas and soap operas, including A Country Practice (for which he wrote at least eleven episodes between 1985 and 1994), Neighbours (for which he wrote at least twenty-one episodes between 1986 and 2003), and Home and Away (for which he wrote at least sixty-six episodes between 1988 and 1999, as well as working as script editor on the series in 1989 and script producer in 2001).

In the 1990s, his scripts included work on The Miraculous Mellops (1991), Blue Heelers (1994), Mirror, Mirror (1996), Flipper & Lopaka (1999), and Water Rats (1999), in addition to his continuing work on A Country Practice, Neighbours, and Home and Away.

Since 2000, he has contributed scripts to MDA (2002-2003), on which he was also script consultant, in addition to his continuing work on Neighbours.

Harding has also written playscripts (though in smaller quantities than television scripts), and has worked as a script-writer in both Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Somewhere in the mid-2000s, he changed careers, and began teaching screen writing at Charles Sturt University (Bathurst campus, School of Communication).

Further Reference

'A Writer's Lot'. CSU News. (http://news.csu.edu.au/director/features.cfm?itemID=96111DF6C33E74ED3C3CF124B7D8A7A7) (Sighted: 23/10/2012)