Germiston-born writer was a natural storyteller
He is best known in South Africa as the television scriptwriter for The Villagers and Westgate series.
World Book Day is on March 4. In celebration of the day, GCN remembered John Cundill who was a South African-born television scriptwriter, playwright, journalist and actor.
The writer was born on May 30, 1936, in Germiston. He is best known in South Africa as the television scriptwriter for The Villagers and Westgate series. Nicky Cundill, his daughter, spoke more about her father.
“My dad always made up stories. I remember one particular trip when we went to Spain and he told a story about a captain, which he never finished. Over the years, my brothers and I kept asking him to finish the story but he never finished it.”
According to Nicky, her father started writing from a young age. “He wrote even at school and one of his pieces was gazetted in the St John’s Colleges newsletter where he was a learner.
“My father loved acting. My grandfather, Algy Cundill, did not want him to be an actor.” After high school, he studied at the University of Cape Town where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree. He then went on to write scripts for plays.
“He also worked as a journalist and wrote for different papers. My grandfather was a mine manager at Gold Fields and Simmer and Jack Mines.”
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Before becoming a journalist, he appeared on stage in Cape Town in Doctor in the House with Nigel Hawthorne in 1958. In 1966, while John wrote plays as a hobby, he won a SABC English radio play prize for To The End of the Road. With the introduction of television at the SABC in 1976, he wrote the scripts for the television drama series The Villagers, which was set on a mine in the Witwatersrand and ran from 1976 until 1978.
“My father grew up on a mine so he was the best scriptwriter for The Villagers.” His next television series was a 26-episode comedy called Oh George. Other television series he wrote for during the 1980s included Westgate, a boardroom family drama and 1922, a historical mining drama set during the Rand Rebellion.
In 1986, he wrote the screenplay for Jock of the Bushveld, based on the book of the same name by Percy Fitzpatrick. In 1988, he emigrated to Australia and worked in Perth and Sydney where he co-wrote screenplays for television and films.
He retired later to Maleny, Queensland, where he continued to write for plays such as Unforced Errors, The Eulogy and Up The Tiber, and also acted on stage. He died in 2016.
“My two brothers, Liam and Scott Cundill, took after our father and are published. Liam is a director and has written two children’s books in South Africa. Scott has written business books in Nigeria.
“I have come to learn that writing comes naturally, it is not influenced,” said Nicky.
She added even before he died they asked him to finish the story of the captain, which he never finished.
Contact the newsroom by emailing: Marietta Lombard (Editor) germistoncitynews@caxton.co.za, or (Journalists) Busi Vilakazi busiv@caxton.co.za , and Lebogang Sekgwama lebogangs@caxton.co.za.
