A ROSS-based playwright is to be honoured with a retrospective of his work at the British Film Institute (BFI) in London in May.

Peter Terson was surprised, he told the Gazette, when the BFI contacted him. "I was amazed really. I would never have rated myself that highly."

Like Arnold Wesker, John Osborne, Harold Pinter and others, Peter is a playwright who emerged from Britain's working class.

The curator at the BFI said: "Peter Terson wrote some of the most deeply human and talked-about dramas of the 1960s and 1970s, displaying an unparallelled ear for natural dialogue and a trademark humour. This season explores the range and depth of this enigmatic playwright."

Peter progressed from teaching to resident dramatist at the Victoria Theatre in Stoke-on-Trent and then on to writing some of the definitive TV plays of the 1970s, commissioned by Granada and BBC. These included Zigger Zagger, which was chosen by the Royal National Theatre as one of the top 100 British plays of the century, and The Fishing Party.

Peter has not seen most of his work which is being shown at the BFI for nearly 40 years. He told the Ross Gazette:?"I just write about things that I noticed. Writing just kind of flowed out of me." Yet he claims never to have really wanted to be a writer. "It was a way of escaping from teaching."

There is still a contemporary audience for his work. Another of his plays, Aesop's Fables, is being brought to the London stage at the Hackney Empire, by director Mark Darnford May, with the African company Isongo. And his book of short plays for the Oxford University Press has been seen by thousands of children in classrooms up and down the country.

Peter's work will be shown at the BFI, Southbank, London at various dates from May 4th through to May 28th. There will be a Queston and Answer session after the showing of The Fishing Party. For further information about the programme visit http://www.bfi.or.uk">www.bfi.or.uk