Where do ideas come from?

It's a familiar question. One unusual - maybe unique - answer is that I was given the idea for a key scene in Waterloo Sunset by a BBC film crew.

Almost exactly six years ago - on 16 September 2002 to be exact - Murder Squad, the crime writers' collective of which I'm proud to be a member, featured in a BBC TV show called Inside Out, which focused on Northern crime writers. We were filmed having a meal at Ann Cleeves' house (in those days she and Tim lived in Yorkshire; now they are in Whitley Bay), and then Ann was filmed on Hilbre Island, off the Wirral coast, while I was filmed beneath Runcorn Bridge, talking about a new plot.

In fact, the idea of using Runcorn Bridge came from the TV people, because they thought (quite rightly) that it would make a great visual image.

As it happened, I was writing at the time books that weren't based in Merseyside. But when I finally got round to Waterloo Sunset, I remembered the TV show - and the Bridge does play an important part in the story.

Here's the BBC link:

Inside Out on BBC TV