Donald Jack was an English-Canadian author, renowned for his historical fiction novels. He is most famous for his series, the Bandy Papers, which features WWI ace Bartholomew Bandy as the main character. This series won Jack the Leacock award on three separate occasions.
Born in 1924 in Standlane, Radcliffe, Jack was the son of a Scottish doctor and a Canadian nurse. He attended Bury Grammar School and Marr College in Scotland before serving in the Royal Airforce between 1943 and 1947. After leaving the RAF, Jack moved back to Radcliffe and tried his hand at becoming an author. However, after struggling for several years without success, he decided to emigrate to Canada to find other work. Once in Canada, he attended the Canadian Theatre School in Toronto but soon discovered that acting was not one of his strengths.
Jack's big break came when his first full-length stage play, "Minuet for Brass Band," received critical acclaim. He followed this success with another well-received stage play, which opened doors for him and led to a job at Crawley Films Ltd as a scriptwriter. Over the next several years, Jack wrote numerous documentary film scripts for his parent company and several others. By 1962, he had written over forty stage and television plays, cementing his reputation as a talented playwright and scriptwriter.